Your Podcast Should Be Making Money (But It Isn’t)

Speaker A00:00:00

Some podcasts with 500 listeners are making six figures, and others with 50,000 downloads are making nothing. The difference isn't the audience. The difference is the business model behind the show.And today, I'm going to show you exactly where the money is hiding in.

Speaker A00:00:45

Hello there.I'm Ralph Estep Jr. I'm a licensed accountant, and I've been doing this for 30 years. I'm a business coach, and I'm a content creator, just like you.I'm known as the content creators accountant, and I help creators, just like you turn content into real income. And here's what I see every single week. So many creators are obsessed with growth.They think more downloads, more views, more followers, but they've got no system to make money. So many of us believe that if I grow the audience, the money is just going to come. But it doesn't. So what happens?You chase those downloads, you celebrate the numbers, and you stay broke. Because the truth is this growth without monetization is just expensive noise.And what I've seen working with content creators, most creators rely on ads, sponsorships, and that's it. Which means this. You don't control your income. Let me give you the real problem. You don't have a content problem. What you have is a monetization gap.Now, that's a big term. So let's talk about what that means. When I say you have a monetization gap, that means there's a gap between your audience's problem and your offer.If you really want to be successful, you've got to figure out how to bridge that gap. Your audience is coming to you with a problem, and you've got to figure out an offer. But that's not what most creators do.Most creators build content very good at that. They attract attention. Very good at attracting attention. They put things all over social media, but they never connect it to a solution.So let me say this clearly. Your audience is not just attention. Think about this for a second. Your audience is actually unmet problems.And money is made when you solve those problems. Let's get to a core principle. Let's talk about audience value. Your audience has value. I've heard it said by many people. You don't monetize a podcast.You monetize an audience, but they don't have value because of how many there are. They have value because of what they need. Let me be blunt.You can have a small audience, but if they've got a big problem, those two things lead to high revenue potential. You can find money there, but at the same time, you could have a large audience. I'm talking about huge audience.But if they don't have a problem, you're not going to make any money. And that's why what I said at the beginning, 500 listeners, dare I say 50 listeners, can outperform every single day.50,000 Listeners or 100,000 listeners. So let's break this down like I would in what I call a real content monetization audit. So let's say we had a podcast, 10,000 downloads per episode.I think all of us would say this is a good podcast. They've got solid engagement, consistent content, but they're making no money. I'm talking zero crickets.Let's get into why I'm gonna do an audit right now. Step one of the audit is this. We gotta look at the audience. Who are they attracting?Are they attracting entrepreneurs, side hustlers, people trying to grow income? Just who is it they're attracting? The audience? Second thing, you've got to look at the problem. What do these people need?These people in your audience, what do they need? Are they looking for more clients? Are they looking for better systems? Are they looking for financial clarity?You've got to clearly define the problem. And then step three, we've got to look at their current monetization plan. What are you doing right now? Are you just waiting for sponsors?Like, somebody's going to knock, knock, here I am at the door, I want to throw money at you. Doesn't usually work. Or maybe you're running ads. How's that going for you? But that's what I say is the clear monetization art.So let me show you what this looks like in real life. I'm going to give you a couple examples of people that I've worked with just recently. I worked with a creator recently who had great content.I'm talking about stellar content, very consistent, posted once a week. And he was showing 8 to 12,000 downloads per episode. I'm honest with you. I was a little jealous of him. Good numbers, but financially, nothing.Nothing to show for all that hard work. So we got on a call and I'll talk a little bit later on the show how you can get on a call with me. And they said something I Hear all the time.They said, ralph, I feel like I'm doing everything right, but it's not turning into income. As soon as I heard that, I said, we can work on this. So we walked through my audit together, and we started with step one.We started talking about the audience, and I asked them a very bold question. I said, who are you attracting? And they were kind of taken back to like, wait a minute, where are you going with this, Ralph?But we had to start there. Who are you attracting? And they said, we're attracting small business owners trying to grow their business. And I was actually happy to hear that.I said, good, you got a clear idea of who your audience is. A lot of content creators don't even know who their audience is. If you don't know who your audience is, hit pause right now. Go figure that out.But then we go on to step two. What's the problem? And I asked this. I said, what are they actually struggling with? That audience?You talked about, those small business people, what are they struggling with? And they said to me, well, they want to grow. And I said, that's not a problem, that's a desire. And they were like, wait a minute.But that's a problem, Ralph. They want to grow. Yes. But we dug a little deeper, and what came out was this.This audience, these small business people, didn't know how to price their products. They were undercharging and they had inconsistent income. See, as soon as we figured that out, now we had something real. We knew the problem.It wasn't that they wanted to grow. The problem was they didn't know how to price. They were undercharging and they had inconsistent income. Which led me to step three, monetization.I asked a very simple question. I said, what are you offering them? And the answer was, Ralph, nothing yet. I figured we'd have to wait until the audience got bigger.Well, there it is. See, that's the gap. That's the content monetization gap. So here's what we did. I work with them. We built one simple offer, super straightforward.We built a pricing audit for small business owners. That's it. Not some complicated funnel, no big launch, just a clear solution to a real problem.Now, once we figured that out, we had to align the content. See, that's part of this, too. So instead of just talking about general tips on their show, they started talking about the problems.They talked about pricing mistakes. They talked about undercharging, and they talked about profit leaks. They had a coherent strategy.And once they did that, every episode pointed Back to that one problem, the best part of it all, it pointed to their one solution. And listen to this. Within 60 days, they had their first paying clients. We didn't change the audience. This was the same audience.It was the same content, tweaked a little bit, but we developed a different system. I want to give you another one. I work with a creator, already had a course.A lot of people try to sell courses, but this person's course wasn't selling at all. And I said to him, I said, why do you think your course isn't selling? They said, well, Ralph, I think my audience just doesn't buy anything.I said, that's not true. So we got into the audit. First thing we looked at, who's your audience? This audience was a fitness focused audience.They were really interested in fitness. And I said, okay, what's their problem? Well, they're looking for consistency in their fitness program.I said, great, sounds like you've got a good audience and you've got a problem. Tell me about your course. Well, our course is about advanced exercises.I said, so what you're telling me is your audience is fitness related people who are looking for consistency and you're trying to sell them a course on advanced exercises. Yeah. Do you see the mismatch? These folks wanted something that was directly related to consistency. So what do we do?We took that course and we repositioned it. They didn't have to go create a new course. It was the same content with a new promise. And that promise was this.A simple system to stay consistent for 30 days. Having been somebody who's been in that whole diet and exercise thing, consistency is huge. And you can make money.You can have a great show in the fitness market if you're a content creator, we just need to realign it. And when we did that, sales started within the same week. They were shocked, actually. They called me and said, ralph, I can't believe this.That little tweak, it fixed it. Same audience, same product, just better alignment. Do you see that? Here's another pattern I see all the time.I work with a podcaster making a little money from sponsors. They, they were making a little money. They had found a couple sponsors that were in their niche, made perfect sense for them, but they felt stuck.They said, ralph, our income isn't growing. And I see this all the time because once you go down the sponsor route, you've capped the ceiling of how much you can actually make.So I started with the audience again. I said, let me ask you this question. What does Your audience actually come to you for why are they there? Why is your audience coming to your show?They could pick a lot of other shows. Why are they coming to yours? And they said to me, well, we're good with clarity. We help them make better decisions and we help give them direction.I said, fantastic. We've got to build a simple offer. We got to move away from the whole sponsorship thing. I said, here's what you can offer them.Offer them a one hour clarity call. That's it. You didn't need any complicated funnel, no $27 tiny offer. I hate those things, by the way. No complexity.And that one offer outperformed their sponsorships in the first month. A wise person once said, sell your own services, because if you're selling sponsorship services, you're going to cap it. How much money you can make.I want to give you another story. This one happens all the time. I work with a creator who was giving away everything. Man, I see this all the time.I mean, they're just blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, giving it all away. They were a great teacher. They had a ton of knowledge, a lot of deep value, but again, zero revenue.And I said to him, I said, well, what you're doing right now is not working, is it? And he said, but Ralph, I don't want to hold anything back. I have all this knowledge. I know how to do these things. That was their struggle.That was the obstacle in their way. And I told them, I said, listen, you don't need to hold back. You just need to organize the value.They were given way too much in every episode, and people were overwhelmed. They didn't even know where to start. So we packaged what they already knew. They had all this great knowledge, but we put it into a simple framework.We developed a step by step process that was easy to follow, and that became their first paid product. People didn't pay for new information. They paid for clarity and structure. They solved the audience's problem.Now, let me ask you right now, do you see the pattern? It's not about more content. Not once have I talked about how to grow your audience. It's not about more audience.It's about connection between a problem and a solution. And that's where the problem is.So many creators are trying to monetize attention, and instead of solving problems, now let's take up a little bit and talk about missed opportunities. Because here's what so many content creators miss. They've got no offer. They don't sell anything.There's no coaching, there's no Consulting, there's no digital products. Just come and pontificate about something that you have a passion in. That's great. But guess what, friend, that is not going to make you money.You gotta have an offer. They've got no funnel, they've got no path from listener to lead to client. They just assume, well, if I put the content out there, they will come.It's not gonna work. They've got no positioning. And when I say they have no positioning, they sound like just another podcast.I could go online right now and find a ton of podcasts about a particular topic. There's a ton of competition out there. But what sets people apart is when you can provide a solution. I hope that's what my show does.I hope my show is providing you with a solution. Because when you don't do all of these things, that's where the money is lost. Well, now let's talk about how to build a framework.What I call the creator revenue ladder. Because I want to give you something you can take away today to actually build income. So this is what I call the creator revenue ladder.Level one is ads. We got to start there. If you've got no audience, start with that. You got to go find people to bring in.Once you do that, then you can start talking about affiliates and maybe we'll do some more shows about some of the specifics in this. But ads and affiliates, I think that's a good place to start.But then you've got to pivot into products that you offer or high level sponsorship products that speak directly to the problems of your audience. And in level four, you get into services, whether that be coaching, maybe masterminds or something along those lines. That's providing a service.Again, what are we trying to do? We're trying to provide a solution.And if you get really good, you get to level five, which is where you build a whole ecosystem, basically a world that your audience lives in. But here's what I see all the time. Most creators never get past level one. And the problem with that is that's not where the real money is.The money starts to grow at level three, four and five. Because once you get to those three, four and five, that's where you own the outcome. You're not just looking, you're not just hoping, wishing.Here's the simplest way to think about this. You've got an audience. I'm a math guy, I'm an accountant by trade. You got an audience.Multiply that audience times their problem, times the offer, and that's what Equals revenue. So you got to know your audience, you got to know the problem, and you got to know the offer. If one of those is missing, you don't get paid.You got a goose egg. Big zero.Now, if you're listening to this right now and you're realizing, ralph, I got an audience, but honestly, I don't have the system you're talking about, well, I can fix that. I want you to go right now to contentcreatorsaccountant.com audit.We'll put that in the show notes, but again, it's content creatorsaccountant.com audit. And I'll personally review your content and I'm going to show you exactly where the money is hiding. Do a deep dive and take a look at that for you.But now let's go a little deeper. A lot of people think monetization is about selling more, but it's not. Monetization is about alignment.Your content should naturally lead to your offer. Here's your content. Here's your offer providing a solution. So let's say your content teaches people.Well, if your content teaches people, then your offer should implement that teaching. Here's how you do it. Maybe your content inspires people. Then your offer should guide them how to be in that level of inspiration.Or maybe your content identifies problems. This is the easiest one to monetize. Because if your content identifies problems, then your offer should solve the problems. That's alignment.That's where you will actually find strength and monetization. So let's make this super simple. Here's what I want you to do this very week if you're a content creator. Number one thing.Step one, identify the problem. Ask yourself this very important question. What problem does my audience actually have? Not the desired outcome.Like I talked to you a little bit earlier about. That's great, but what is the actual problem that they have? That's step one. Step two, define the outcome.Ask yourself, what result does your audience actually want? You got to know that answer.Because if you don't know what the problem is and you don't know what the outcome is they need, you're never going to be able to get to the next step, which is build one offer. This isn't the time to build five offers or ten teaching courses or something like that. Something simple.Maybe a coaching call, maybe like I'm offering an audit. Maybe you build a course or maybe you offer a service to get them from problem to outcome to solution.And then once you figure that out, that's when you go back and you connect your content to the offer. See the strategy here? You've really got to be strategic about this. It isn't just, well, let me just throw something out there and see what happens.That will never work.Every single episode, every single piece of content, whether it be your episode, your YouTube shorts, Reels, Instagram, social media posts, all have to connect to the offer. They all got a point somewhere. You don't have to be aggressive with this.If you're providing a solution, people will figure it out, but you've got to be intentional about it. Well, let me leave you with this. Your podcast is not a hobby. It's a business asset. I'm going to give you a little tough love right now.And if it's not making money, it's not because it can't make money. It's because you don't have a system. So if you fix that system, I'm going to promise you something right now.If you fix that system, the revenue will follow.So if you want me to personally review your show and and show you exactly where your monetization gaps are, go to content creators accountant.com audit and apply for a content monetization audit. And then let's turn your content into real income, because that's what I do.I'm Ralph Estep Jr. And I am the content creators accountant, and I'll see you on the next show.