Unheard of Way to Monetize Your Podcast

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My approach to monetizing your podcast is different than most. Not only have I made my podcast a sponsored show (with real money), but I've also helped several other podcasters generate their first paid sponsorship.

This interview was originally aired on Linda Melone's B2B Healthy Copytalks podcast.

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Connect with Eric on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericmelchor/


Previous guests include: Arvid Kahl of FeedbackPanda, Andrei Zinkevich of FullFunnel, Scott Van den Berg of Influencer Capital, Buster Franken of Fruitpunch AI, Valentin Radu of Omniconvert, Evelina Necula of Kinderpedia, Ionut Vlad of Tokinomo, Diana Florescu of MediaforGrowth, Irina Obushtarova of Recursive, Monika Paule of Caszyme, Yannick Veys of Hypefury, Laura Erdem of Dreamdata, and Pija Indriunaite of CityBee.

Check out our four most downloaded episodes:

From Uber and BCG to building a telehealth for pets startup with Michael Fisher

From Starcraft Player to Maximizing Customer Lifetime Value with Valentin Radu

Revolutionizing Parent-Teacher Communication with Kinder...

Transcript

Eric (00:00.046)
It's really a door opener. It has led to different consulting opportunities because people have gotten to know me and I've built that audience, as you can say. And I think if you go about it that way in the beginning, not as, Hey, can I make money from this? But what relationships can I build and deepen from this? If you go that way first, then the money is sort of like the cherry on top. You know, it happens, it happens, and it's a good, it's a, it's a fun thing when it does happen.

Hey everyone and welcome to this week's episode of innovators can laugh. This is actually a previous recorded episode with Linda Malone on her B2B marketing and copywriting podcast. We get into how to think about monetizing your podcasts, why brands are making mistakes if they're not trying podcast sponsorship as a grow channel and why traditional ad networks are bad for both brands and podcasters. We also have some laughs talking about how my mom used to embarrass me all the time when I was a kid. Also,

Quick shout out to B2B Podprose that is powering this episode. This is my B2B podcast media network that helps scale ups, reach new audiences through podcast sponsorships. You can check it out in the link below. Also for people listening, this podcast is not free. The cost is for you to hit that subscribe button. So if you like it, subscribe on YouTube, Apple or Spotify and tell others about it. That said, let's dive into the conversation with Linda. My guest today is Eric Melcher.

Eric is the founder of the Innovators Can Laugh B2B podcast community, of which I am a part. He's also touts himself as a mediocre tennis player. He's a Texan living in Romania and the founder of the B2B podcast media network. But he says he's thinking of trading all that in to become a handsome billionaire. So we'll see how that's going. In today's discussion, we are going to chat about

Why might some brands be hesitant to try podcast sponsorships? Why are some traditional ad networks bad for both B2B brands and podcasters? And also why do 90 % of podcasts never make it past 10 episodes? Should all be super interesting. So let's dive right in. All right, Eric, thank you so much for taking the time to be with me today and to record this episode. I'm super excited to talk to you.

Eric (02:28.046)
All the way from Romania? Yeah, from Romania. That's right. Pleasure to be here. I'm excited to chat with you as well. Yeah, and this is a subject I'm actually, it's kind of self -serving because there's questions I'm going to ask you that I actually want to know myself. So it's it, but it is for the audience as well. But before we even get into that, I have to ask you where like you and I share a love of humor. And I want to know where that started for you because we've been exchanging like stand up comedy.

that I've been sending you. Yeah, yeah, I think it comes from just a lot of adversity and obstacles that I've had to overcome, you know, going back way, way back, even like high school years. And, you know, my mom, she was kind of a single mom, kind of just struggling to put food on the table for me and my brother. I mean, there was some there were some days where we didn't even have like, energy, you know, electricity or the lights on. And,

She was just a very positive person. So I think it really comes from her. She always kind of looked at the good things, you know, the good side to life and never really focused on the negative things. So I definitely have to say it came from my mom. Did she have a good sense of humor about it? Like, did she try to make light of things or? Yeah, she was just always very enthusiastic and she was the first one to like cheer me or my brother at a basketball game or a football game.

She was the first parent to get kicked off because the referee was like, you know, lady, that's enough, you know, get out of here, you know. But oh my God. One time she came to visit me. I was studying abroad in Mexico and I never forget she got through security at the airport and she came through those doors and she was just waving her arms like this. And she was like shouting and like, oh my God. Yeah. She was so happy. You're like, come see me. And this embarrassed the crap out of me. She did that all the time.

That's funny. Yeah, my dad was one with the sense of humor in our family and my mom is Japanese and my mother didn't understand a lot of the abstract concepts of humor. And so that made it funnier because we're all laughing at moms like I just don't get it. And so then we laugh harder and she can even matter. But you know, it worked out again. So wow. So do you speak a little bit of Japanese? No, I wish I did. And it's funny because my father was Italian.

Eric (04:49.71)
And he, I don't know if he knew Italian, but my mother definitely, she hardly knew any English when she came here. So they met, he was in the Air Force and he met her in Japan. So she came here knowing very little English and yeah, and she thought it would confuse me and my brother to speak Japanese, which as you know, as a child, they can pick up languages. You know, and so I shouldn't be speak, I should be speaking Italian and Japanese and I can barely get through English most days.

So my kids speak Romanian. My son picked it up in about three months once we moved here and my daughter, they speak Romanian to each other. I don't even understand what they're saying. That's not good. Dad should know what's going on. But yeah, so to jump into today's subject, which I'm excited because it's all about monetizing your podcast. And it's something I've had a podcast for two years now.

and you and I connected on LinkedIn because of this and now I'm part of your network and which has been really helpful. And one of the things that I wanted to ask about is, do you need like, how do you even get started? Because I never thought about monetizing my podcast until you said, hey, you know, are you interested in getting sponsors? I'm like, well, yeah, but do I even qualify? So what is it about? How do you monetize your podcast? And what do you need in order to do it? Yeah, I think before you start thinking of your podcast as a way to, um,

make some additional revenue, you should first think about it as a relationship management tool, right? Because it's a really a great way to nurture prospective clients, you know, learn more about existing clients or customers that you're working with. And I think that should be your primary focus when you're just starting out.

And then also getting to meet interesting people that you want to meet by offering them to be, you know, come onto the show. So I think that's the first thing that you should do. Um, and so once you're, once you get good at doing that, and that could probably be, you know, at least 20, 30 episodes, right. And once you've got that part down, then I think, uh, the next thing that you can do is start approaching the people that you already know. And so one little hack that I do is.

Eric (07:05.869)
After I interview a guest the day after, I have a, I use, I think it's called Squarespace for email or something like that. But there's a follow -up email that goes out and the email is triggered automatically and it thanks them for being a guest on the show. But in the email, I say a couple of things. The first one is to follow the podcast on Spotify or Apple so they can automatically receive the show when it drops. And then the second thing I say is,

You know, I've got a sponsor spot open next quarter. Do you know somebody who would be interested in podcast sponsorships as a customer acquisition channel? Right. So it's a very subtle way to get the word out to people that you've gotten to know, who've gotten to learn more about you, who've gotten to trust you. And you're not even asking them directly. You're asking, do they know somebody? Right. And so I think that's a very simple hack that you can kind of set up.

as far as getting the word out about potential sponsorships. After that, the next thing that you can do is send a code email, right? Or a DM or a message to a potential sponsor. This is something that I did. And I think it was very receptive. I got a lot of phone calls and it worked out well. And if you want, I can share the script. You want me to share what the script is? It's very, very short. Sure. Okay. I said, I said, you know, hi, the person's name.

I'm planning out season five or whatever of the podcast, include your name in the podcast. And I love to promote your company, include the name of the company on my podcast. Now my audience mainly consists of, and then you talk about who your audience is, and ideally it's the same kind of audience that your potential sponsor is trying to reach, right? Right. Want to hop on a quick call and learn more about some ideas I had on a potential sponsorship. That's it.

That's it. Thanks and then your name and then maybe your podcast website. So very short and sweet. And again, if you're trying to target potential sponsors, I think something very short and sweet and it's not really like, hey, would you be interested? It's more about, you know, you just want to hop on a car and maybe exchange some ideas on a potential sponsorship. And so if you can get them on the call, then obviously you have a much better chance and, and trying to persuade them to sponsor your show. But kind of going back to your original question, you don't need a million downloads.

Eric (09:31.021)
if you're trying to monetize, if you're in the B2B space or in a very niche space, I think the key is that you've built some trust and credibility over some time, that you've got at least 30 or 40 episodes under your belt. And a lot of people in that same community have gotten to know who you are and you're consistent. That's another big one, is consistency. I don't allow anybody in the network who's not consistent. So you had to have published an episode at least in the last 30 days and you publish at least, you know,

two of them a month. So those are a couple of different ideas. The third idea I think is the easiest is you join a podcast media network. And so you're in it, you know, there's other podcasters in my network. And basically, I try to do the work for you. There's no risk. I'm the one out there that's trying to do all the promotion and advertising and marketing and trying to talk with potential sponsors and trying to negotiate a rate that you would enjoy.

that you're willing to take to be able to air the sponsor's message or 30 or 60 second ad on the show. And so I think those are really the three main ways that you can go about it. The first is just tapping into your network, including guests that you've had on the show. The second is sending like a code message, very short and sweet, asking to hop on a call. And then of course, the third one is trying to find a network that works out for you. All right, folks, time for a quick break here.

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head to leadfeeder .com and get a free trial today. You can also get an extended premium free trial when you let them know you heard about Leadfeeder through the B2B Marketers Can Lab podcast. Okay, back to the show. Yeah. And the network, I have to say, has been great because a lot of what I love is that the people in your network are all pretty serious. Like you said, they have to be consistent because I joined like a couple of Facebook groups, podcasters, and everyone's new.

Eric (11:57.965)
Or they, you know, and there's nothing wrong with that. We're all new at some point, but they're not like, I can just tell they're probably not going to stick with it. Which brings me to a question. Like, isn't something like 90, I had heard like 95 % or 90 % of people that make a past 10 episodes. Do you know why is that? That's so true. Well, first it's just the grind.

You know, people are overwhelmed because you ask the average podcaster, how long does it take to from start to finish, produce a show? And it's anywhere on average from seven to about 18 hours, depending on how much distribution and promotion that you do, how much editing that you do. And so, you know, for, for 10 hours a week, this is something that if you don't have that extra time and you're not willing to commit to it, then you're, you're, you're over your head.

You just don't really have that bandwidth. And it's a lot of work and it's, you know, finding the clients or finding the guests and coordinating the times, you know, that you can have the interview. And that's the easy part. Wouldn't you say? I would think that's the easy part, right Linda? Yeah. Well, I have an editor that takes all that, you know, because I don't spend that much time on it. I'd probably need to spend more time promoting it, which is what I'm working on now. But I don't, I mean, I record, I think what helps me and it may be the same with you is we're both on LinkedIn and we're very active.

I mean, I'm always finding people who are willing to, you know, and I asked for recommendations, usually it's a person on LinkedIn. I've never had a problem getting a guest. In fact, now I'm getting more selective because people are approaching me and they're not a fit, but they really want to get out there. It doesn't matter what they want. It's like, you know, it's my audience. What do they want? But yeah, I don't usually have a problem with it. In fact, it's interesting because I just this week,

hired someone from Upwork to get a database, like to have her start collecting names for me for potential guests. And I told her what, you know, my target audience is marketers and actually fitness marketers specifically, but I don't know how hard that's going to be to find, but she's working on it right now. And usually I get something out of that. I've had people do that before. That's an awesome idea. That's something that I've never really heard a podcaster doing.

Eric (14:15.725)
But I think that is a phenomenal idea. I've used Upwork or Fiverr for somebody to do some sort of like influencer research and find people that use certain hashtags. So I don't see why it wouldn't work the same for podcasters. But you know, like you, when I was starting out, I joined a Facebook group as well. And I could tell, even though I was a newbie, I could tell that everybody had like a different industry or they were in a different, you know, category.

And it's just a little bit different because we're B2B. And I think our material and our content is a little bit more serious. Because the people who are going to take the time out of their day to listen to our show, they don't want to just be entertained. We're not really telling a crime story or telling jokes. Even though that would be funny.

Eric (15:09.805)
Oh, I can't think of the name of it now with the three comedians that they they're very well known. They have a very popular podcast and they always have like their three comedians and they interview and they're all famous. So they get really high level people like Keanu Reeves on and people like that. So it's, yeah, it's pretty interesting. But yeah, it's but that is for entertainment. And so you're right. I mean, people who like when I go on a

when I am listening to podcasts, I'm trying to think, I think everything I listen to is really to learn something from and it's what, you know, what people are talking about in the B2B space, marketing, it should be interesting on some level. I mean, if it's super boring and I've gotten a couple of those, I can't listen to it. You know, I'm not going to sit there and, you know. Either that or the person is just really good at storytelling.

Uh, like crime junkie. My wife loves that show. Whenever we go to her parents' house, which is like a two hour drive, she'll, you know, she'll pop in the episodes and she's just so, she's so into it. And I'm telling her like this topic or this case or whatever is the most boring case, but this, the host is so good at storytelling. I understand why the audience is captivated in Toon's head, but the case itself.

Oh, a guy went missing. They never found him and there was no clues. It's as boring as hell. That sums it up right there. Yeah, yeah. All of them can be summed up with that. I have to look on my phone to see what the name of that should because that was driving me crazy. But in the meantime, so how I wanted to ask this because I know I'm just getting started getting sponsors myself and you're getting them, you know, for me and it's been great. But how hard is it to make like real money? Like in other words,

enough to replace other streams of income. Is that something that's a outlandish goal to have or is it something that could? Yeah, I think in the B2B space, that's an outlandish goal in my opinion. I think I'll give you an example. We have somebody in our community who's been at this for over five years. His podcast is rated pretty high. I think it's like 1 .5%. Right, it's pretty high. And

Eric (17:27.725)
His show gets almost a thousand downloads a month. But what he's trying to ask for in sponsorships, when he's doing it himself, he's asking around maybe $2 ,500 to $3 ,000 a month. That's pretty good money, but it's not enough to replace what your current job is, your current income. It's still good money, but again.

He's been at this for many, many years and he's got a very top rated show. So I think in the B2B space, unless you're like maybe the top one or two, like Entrepreneurial is on fire or some of those shows that have been around a long time and they do get thousands of downloads, if not several, dozens of thousands of downloads every month, then you're not really going to make life changing income from it. So it sounds like it's more of like, I hate to use side hustle, but that...

it is something that you could, it's like additional income for what you're currently making. So, which is reasonable. And the thing is to you, as with all of these things, you have to enjoy it. Like I love doing my podcast. And I love like talking to people like you, you know, and just getting and then other people benefit from our conversation. So you know, to me, that's, that's very cool. So to make money on it would be kind of a bonus.

You know, so absolutely you got to be passionate about it. I mean, I've done mine for almost three years now and for over two years, I didn't make anything from it. My expenses, average expenses every month were probably about $300. So if you do the math, I think, you know, $7 ,000 in and didn't even make a dime from any sort of sponsorship. But like I said, it's really a door opener. It has led to different consulting opportunities because people have gotten to know me.

And I built that audience, as you can say. And I think if you go about it that way in the beginning, not as, hey, can I make money from this? But what relationships can I build and deepen from this? If you go that way first, then the money is sort of like the cherry on top. Right. If it happens, it happens. And it's a fun thing when it does happen. Yeah. I mean, I was at a...

Eric (19:38.445)
was speaking at a seminar last April, and there was another podcast today who I ended up having on my show. And he said podcasting, asking someone to be on your podcast is the new way to say, Can I pick your brain? Which first of all, I hate that term, because I always think immediately of zombies. And who wants to do that? But it's also just, it's like a gross who thinks of that? It just I just found the name of that the podcast I was talking about a smart list. Okay. Okay, so that's the one that I think I

I think I have heard of it. Yeah. It's very well known. Is it Jason Bateman? Yes. I've listened to a few episodes. Will Arnett and Eric. I love the concept because one of them brings on a guest and without telling the other two who it is. And I've listened to a few of them. I listened to the one with Matthew McConaughey and they were having audio trouble and Jason didn't know it was Matthew who was a guest and it was funny because he was like cussing up a storm.

And then finally Matthew comes on and he was just like laughing. And it was really, it was really funny. But yeah, it's a good one. Yeah, they're a riot. I mean, they really are good. But yeah, well, what are some brands like brands might be hesitant to try podcast sponsorships? Now, why is that? Yeah, I mean, the main reason the first question that I always get from potential sponsors is like, well, what's the return on investment? Right. And so I think that's the biggest hesitation.

And it's like, well, how do you measure that? You know, how do you track it? It's like audio. And there's actually a few different ways that you can track it. You know, the first thing that we did, and I say we, when I was at Bonjuro, which is a SaaS startup out of Australia a few years ago, we actually just added an extra question on our signup form that just said, how did you hear about us? And we had different options for people to select and podcasting was one of the options. And so when we started doing a lot of, uh,

interest in podcasting and investment over time, like over a few months, more and more new customers were saying, you know, through podcasts. And so we realized that it was working, that it was a really good play, and that there was a positive return. Another thing that you can do is obviously UTM tracking codes for the show. And that's sort of a no brainer because you can go into GA and find out what traffic is coming, although...

Eric (21:58.893)
That's not really the intent is for a listener to go and click on the link and the show description, but still it does happen where, oh, that was very interesting. That sponsor, let me go learn more about him. And once they do click on that link, it registers and the brand can see like, okay, this show is generating the kind of traffic that's coming to our website, the kind of audience that we want. And if you want to go even deeper, there's tools out there like Leadfeeder.

And if you're using that kind of application, you can actually see the companies that are coming to your show from those specific UTM tracking links. And one of our sponsors happened to be Leap Theater. They did a trial with us for a few weeks. And then really after like less than two weeks, they realized that we were sending high quality visitors to their website and they extended that campaign for an entire quarter because they were using UTM tracking links. And plus their software was able to see.

which companies were browsing their website. That's interesting. Yeah. And I have heard of that too. I think that's also why I know Amy Porterfield has a huge podcast that she's been running for years and she always has, I don't know if she's still doing it. I haven't listened to it in a while, but she always has her guests create like a free PDF and she will put the PDF on her site and in order, cause I've signed up for a couple of these, you have to enter your name and a little bit of information to get the free PDF.

So that's a great way to track it. So it takes it back. I believe it's to her own website. And so that's, yeah, any kind of tracking like that. And like you said, Google analytics. But yeah, just asking where they heard about you is the best way really. Yeah, she's so good. Online marketing made easy. I used to listen to her a few years ago, a really good show. I haven't listened to it in a while, but yeah, I think anybody that Facebook ads used to be her big thing, but then she would always have guests that were,

different fields and digital marketing, but that was a good show. Yeah, I met her in person at a seminar a few years ago. She's super nice. San Diego or somewhere else? This was Laguna Beach. I belong to a group. I was taking a course and James Wedmore has a group. It's what is it called? I don't know what he calls it now. Business by Design, I guess it was. So she was one of the speakers and I was there. And so

Eric (24:23.405)
Yeah, I remember she was like exhausted and it was the end of the day and people are like, can I get a selfie with you? And she just, she was like, sure, you know, she's super nice. And because when someone's really successful, you always think like, are they really that nice in person? Yeah, she really is that nice in person. So yeah, it's like, all right, well, I'm glad she's successful. That's the other thing, Linda, you can't fake. You can't fake who you are on a podcast.

Right? I think other forms of media, maybe through blogging or newsletters, you can kind of fake because it's just words. But when you're chatting with somebody for like 30 minutes, you can't help but your authenticity and your personality to really come through. And I think listeners, they detect that. I think they detect the bullshit or the fakers. But when you've been doing a podcast,

several episodes, you know, when you've gotten into like more than 50 or 60, people really know what kind of person you are, I think. That's just me. Yeah. Yeah. And there's been times I've gotten on, I've interviewed people and throughout the interview, it seems like it only once I remember specifically, and I have over a hundred episodes, it kind of went off the rails, like in my mind, like I just found, and I don't know to this day, if I asked a weird question or, you know, but the guest was,

just didn't seem like he was happy to talk to me any longer. I really don't know what I did. And I ever followed up on that. But and maybe it was just in my own head. Has that ever happened to you? Because you've interviewed a lot of people, like it just didn't seem to work and got kind of weird. I've had a couple of guests where those guests where you ask a question and they give you like a 15 minute answer. And you're trying to like find a spot where you can intervene and interrupt. And they won't stay will shut up. Yeah, I've had a couple of those.

That's funny. Yeah, you have to have kind of a balance. And usually when I look at the transcripts of my interviews, my podcasts, it'll say, you know, it says like I use Fireflies AI, and it will take the whole transcript and it tells you the percentage that a person has spoken and usually, it's about 75 % my guests and about 25, maybe 30 % that I talk. And I think that's that's pretty good because I don't want to overtake the conversation but yet.

Eric (26:43.885)
I should have some part in it. Is there a reason? Why are traditional ad networks bad for both B2B brands and podcasters? The traditional ad networks, they're set up in such a way where they pay the podcasters as little as possible. I signed up for several of them before I started my own network. The CPMs, they pay on a CPM.

cost per 1000 episodes downloaded type model. Now podcasts in the B2B space are not generating thousands of downloads every month, right? Right. And so if we were to, if they were to pay us or if we were to operate on their, their business model, you know, we would make maybe $20 a month for our show. And that just doesn't make sense because they really want podcasts that have downloads in the thousands. Usually,

at least 10 ,000 downloads a month or higher. And so that model for the big ad networks, it's not really fair for B2B podcasters like us. And then of course, you're trying to sell ad slots to brands for as expensive as possible. And what happens is, is because there's very few B2B podcasts that are listed on those networks, and there's very little inventory.

you know, choose from reputable B2B podcasts. And there's also just a higher likelihood of ad fraud. And that happens more than occasion with the big ad networks where a lot of the ads are being served to bots or big, you know, bot firms. Oh, yeah. They're just not counted as downloads. So that's the, I guess you would say that's the risk of working with the big ad network, especially if you're trying to advertise on business -related or B2B -related podcasts.

Yeah. And do you know, and this is, I didn't ask you this in advance, so you probably don't know this off the top of your head. Is there an average for how many downloads like your average B2B podcast gets like the Amy Porter fields? I mean, those are the outliers, right? They get like tons. Is there an average, do you know? There is. Listennotes .com, which is like the search engine for podcasts.

Eric (29:04.909)
And they tell you that if a podcast is rated around 10%, then they're probably getting X number of podcasts downloads a month. I think it's something like 400 to 500. And if it's rated 5%, then that goes up to like around 700 or 800. And if it's like in the top, you know, 1%, then they're getting probably around 2 or 3000 downloads a month. So that's the gauge that I use.

because all the other tools out there, there's really not one tool that's going to show you all the downloads that are coming from Spotify plus Apple plus, you know, Buzzsprout plus all the different, you know, players out there like Google and Amazon. There's not one tool out there that aggregates all of them. And so therefore it's kind of like a big question mark. You actually have to rely on the podcaster to see new screenshots or you can kind of use that gauge of what the ranking is that's shown on ListenNotes. And I, that's the,

That's what I tell clients is like, hey, the podcast on my network, I'm going to tell you what's the estimated average downloads that they get. And you can also kind of go get a verify that if you go to listen notes too, and just see what they're ranked. Yeah, that's interesting because I thought it was a lot higher than it is. But I think it's because I'm comparing myself to the Amy Porter fields. I mean, it's just like I said, those are outliers. They're like, it's like Joe Rogan.

You know, like who's going to, who has that sort of number? And usually it's people who are well known before they start their podcast because they, like I remember Amy Porterfield, not Amy Porter, um, Marie Forleo, she started a podcast after she had grown her business and grown all these other aspects of it. Then she said, okay. And then she announced way in advance when she was starting her podcast and she had all these episodes in the queue already. And I don't know.

have no idea what her numbers were. I'm sure it was astronomical because when she said, Okay, I'm launching it was like everyone was waiting for it. When you have that sort of poll. It's way easier, you know, than someone like, you know, who's Linda Malone? I don't know. I think she's on. But someday, someday like you have the goal of becoming a handsome billionaire, you said so I say in your bio, give it all up today.

Eric (31:24.941)
Yeah, someday. Now if you're not well known, it takes minimum two to three years. And I've heard a lot of people say that to grow an audience on a podcast and you're not Amy Porterfield, you better be able to put in the work for two or three years. Yeah. And that's the thing, people fall off with consistency all over the place. Like I used to be a personal trainer. And that's the biggest thing. I mean, people, in fact, it's funny because I just spoke to someone the other day who may end up being a client, but she's a former fitness

I think a group instructor and she said she got out of it too because she goes, I was tired of just being a babysitter. No one really wants to work. They don't want to be consistent. You know, and so it's like even with podcasting, it's because I'm one of those people if I join a group or something, I'm the last one standing like I'm there. You know, if I'm in it, I'm in 100 % or I'm just not in it. It's just no like medium, you know, I'm not just on occasion unless I'm really losing interest, which has happened, you know, for the long term.

a commitment, but then I know it's happening. It's like, all right, move on. Yeah. Yeah. You got to kind of like, you got to get it turned into Tony Robbins. So whenever I have an interview with somebody, it's like, I got to psych myself up and just get motivated because after you've published like over a hundred episodes, you know, it does become one of those things like, oh man, I got to record one today or I've got two recordings this week. And you just may not be into it, especially if you're really not into the guests.

And so that's another big thing is like, okay, you should really just invite the guests that you are very interested in. Don't pick somebody because they just have a big name, right? And I think if you fall into that trap and you're not really interested in that person, then it does show in the conversation. Yeah. And the thing is, I've heard this too, and tell me if you've heard something similar, just because you have a big name guest doesn't mean that they're going to really bump up your listening audience numbers.

Yeah, and I think a lot of the reason is, is one, they're unlikely to share it. And I was just talking with Sam on this from the Business Grow the Show. And he was like, oh yeah, whenever I send out my show, usually the ones with the bigger name, they never, they never, you know, promote it or share it. And then two, I do think that, that the audience gets tired of hearing the same conversation or the same interview with the same guests, right? I mean, once you've heard like,

Eric (33:49.005)
I don't know, three or four interviews with Arnold Schwarzenegger, right? I mean, even if you're a big fan, you're probably not going to hear number 10, 11, and 12 interviews. You know, it's like, once I've heard this guy chat a few times, I think I've heard enough. And I think in our world, God, what is that word? Where I guess maybe saturated is too much saturation of guests sometimes.

So therefore, if you find somebody who's a little bit quirky, a little bit different, not so mainstream, for me, those end up being the best conversation. I think it goes back to even stand -up comics and comedians. If you've heard their set and you've heard them a number of times, you know what jokes are coming. Sometimes they're still funny. Like Brian Regan, I will laugh just as hard. He's just insane.

But other ones, it's like, okay, I've heard this because we get on YouTube at night sometimes, let me see if I can find a new comedian. And a lot of times it's like the same old stuff. So when they have something new, it's like, okay, now I want to hear this because I've never heard this one before. And just one last question. So B2B Pod Pros, can you tell a little bit what that is and why wouldn't or shouldn't a brand work with B2B Pod Pros? Yeah, so...

B2B Bot Pros, it's the B2B podcast media network that I started out of frustration for two reasons. One was just, again, frustrated with trying to get sponsors to sponsor the show because sponsors would be like, well, your download numbers are not the size of Joe Rogan, so we don't really want to sponsor you, right? But I thought, hey, I know there's a lot of other B2B marketers who have a podcast that are in the same spot I am. Why don't we just aggregate all of our supply?

and then we can offer that as a group sponsorship. And so that's what we're doing. It's also turned out to be a fun community where we learn and support each other. And my goal is just to make it a fun community, but also try to give you opportunities where you can make some extra revenue for your show. So that launched recently, pretty excited about that. And why brands shouldn't work with us? Well, I think the first reason is if they have the time, they can do it themselves.

Eric (36:04.653)
go listen to 30, 40 different B2B podcasts, go try and find out the contact information for those hosts and try to reach out to them and connect with them and try to find out if they have something available and then do all the coordination and then the administrative work that goes with and trying to coordinating a campaign, right? So that's, you can go do that, right? If you want. The other big reason is if you already have like channels that are working really good for you, like

case studies or blogs or maybe even Facebook ads and you see no reason to try something new like a new media channel, then by all means continue to do what's working for you. But if you do see that a lot of your old channels are not really pulling in the kind of traffic that they used to and you want to be in a place where your audience is consuming media and in a place that you're not at.

right now, whether that be newsletters or even podcasts, then this is something that you should want to consider. Yeah, that's great. So you have, just to clarify for listeners, so Innovators Can Laugh is, how is that? And then you have B2B Pod Pros. So what's the difference between those two? So Innovators Can Laugh is the name of my personal podcast. Okay. And the official company name, the ALC,

of the media network is the Innovators Can Laugh podcast media network, aka B2B PodPros. And so we're just doing DBA as B2B PodPros. Okay, awesome. And this has been great. So where can people find you and find out more about everything that you're doing? Yeah, LinkedIn would be the first place. I'm pretty active on there. And the second place, if you want to learn more about

the media network, whether you're a potential sponsor or a podcaster, just go to b2bpodpros .com. Awesome. We'll put all that in the show notes. Well, Eric, this has been great. Thank you so much for taking time to be on this special because it was a last minute request. So I really appreciate that. Now my pleasure. Thank you so much, Linda.