IAM2303 – Gresh Shares the Effective Strategies to Monetize Podcast

Gresham began with a blog called Hearpreneur, focusing on content for entrepreneurs. Over time, he realized that entrepreneurs were more interested in actionable advice than just stories. This led him to create CEO Blog Nation and expand into podcasts, videos, and blogs.

He emphasizes the importance of having a business that supports the podcast, as many podcasters struggle when their shows' constraints generate income.

Gresham shares that podcasters can generate income through affiliate marketing, e-commerce, or a service-based business.

Gresham does not believe you need to be an expert in the niche you're podcasting about. Instead, you can focus on creating a platform and inviting experts onto your show to share their insights.

He motivates podcasters to focus on their unique voice, rather than trying to imitate others, as authentic content will naturally stand out.

In addition, Gresham inspires others to embrace the journey and the mistakes along the way, as they are part of the learning process.

Episode Link: Rogier Giersthove Podcast

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Transcription:

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Gresham Harkless Teaser 00:00

And if you are able to have that conversation and do it in your own way with your own voice, even if people try to emulate or try to duplicate what you're doing, they're not going to do it like you do.

Intro 00:13

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO Podcast. And I wanted to share with you one of the episodes that I was a guest on for someone else's podcast.

I always talk about how important it is to build a media company. One of the next best things you can do is be on somebody else's media company.

So I had the pleasure of being a guest on this podcast and I want to share a little snippet with you because it would help support the 8 business pillars we've really been trying to focus on with a lot more of our content, a lot more of the solo episodes that I'm doing.

So make sure of course that you subscribe to our podcast, but of course you take some time out, check out the show notes to subscribe to the podcast that I've been featured on as well too.

And get to learn about some of those 8 business pillars and how you can continue to kind of leverage and build that up so you can go from builder to architect to a course at Rockstar and Luminary. So this is Gresh signing out. I hope you enjoyed this I AM CEO special episode.

Rogier Giersthove 01:05

So what made you get into podcasting?

Gresham Harkless 01:07

Yeah, absolutely. So I started out first with this one of the blogs called Hearpreneur. And then I started to realize that entrepreneurs didn't hear an entrepreneur.

Entrepreneurs didn't just want to hear stories, they wanted to know actionable advice and things that they did, they found to be effective.

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So I'm brought into CEO Blog Nation. And then I started to kind of create different kind of rungs of a chair, so to speak, where I had podcasts of videos and blogs so that people can take in content in different ways.

So, honestly, my podcast, the very first podcast I published, I guess you can say, was honestly me having an interview with somebody and just recording the interview.

So my podcast actually started from there where I was literally just having a interview of somebody.

I would listen to that interview myself and then I would publish it on the blog. And I started to realize that, hey, there's some really valuable content that I'm listening to, I get to hear it.

So why couldn't others, begin to hear it? So from there, it manifests itself into what became the CEO Chat Podcast, which was a longer form podcast, but the goal was really to initially take these interviews and just publish them.

And then it started to manifest itself and are to evolve, I should say, into the podcast that I have now.

And now the laser focused daily podcast that I have is the I am CEO podcast. So it kind of wasn't something that from day one, it just happened.

It was something that kind of evolved just from me honestly, just pursuing my interests and things that I wanted to know about personally nice.

You really get that opportunity to take all of that experience to still it down into hopefully valuable lessons learned that you are able to execute on in your next venture in the venture after that.

So I definitely feel like that has been an advantage to me of being able to just learn from people and be able to execute myself for every podcast and every episode I have.

Rogier Giersthove 03:05

So you basically took what you could take from the other experience and put it in your podcast experience.

But it makes me wonder though, because while a lot of these things are the same, I can imagine that you probably had to go through some roadblocks that might have been different for a blog compared to a podcasting. If you had these different roadblocks, what kind of, what were they?

Gresham Harkless 03:36

Yeah, for me, I mean, the roadblocks for the podcast itself were how to figure out how kind of putting that time towards that and investing that time towards that would be something that would be valuable for me and my business and the people that are listening to.

Because if you don't have a business that can sustain itself, it's really hard to continue with the podcast. It's really hard to continue with the blog itself.

So that was one of the things that I really went back to, I call it the lab where I think of ideas. I went back to the lab to really understand like how was this first podcast serving me?

What can I do better? How can I maybe retool things so that it can be something that can supplement my business or compliment my business?

And that really was something that I had to really understand with, especially with Blue 16 Media, because that was my digital marketing business was really the business that helped me to pay the bills, to be able to go on trips and pay my mortgage and do all of those things.

So to try to take time away from my core business, I had to really understand how it would really move things forward.

So that's when I really went and tried to reconfigure and figure out how can I reposition this or maybe invent the business so that it can compliment my strengths but also compliment what it is that I know is already working?

Rogier Giersthove 05:01

Interesting. So basically, your podcast complements your business, and is it something on its own?

Do you know some methods that you can make money with podcasting without complimenting your business?

Gresham Harkless 05:17

I think that, to me, and granted, everything depends on the amount of time that you have. I think that is one of the bigger mistakes that, and granted when I say mistakes, I mean that I wish I would have known that sooner, that I wish I did have a business to compliment it.

And when I say business, it doesn't have to be a full fledged business. There's different ways to compliment your podcast.

So it doesn't have to be a digital marketing business. It can literally be, maybe you're doing drop shipping, maybe you're doing affiliate links or something along those lines to compliment and drive some revenue.

And the reason that I say that that's important is because if you're able to spend the time, if you have unlimited time, then by all means go and do your podcast and create that.

But I really believe that having the opportunity to generate revenue will help you to be able to sustain the business because I think so many times people don't stay with the podcasting because it doesn't actually generate revenue for them.

So if you have that mindset in the beginning that either I'm gonna tack this onto a business I have, or maybe just create something that provides some revenue as I grow this, it gives you that opportunity to really hopefully continue on with it.

Because I think like you mentioned about introverts, so many people have really valuable things to say and really valuable content.

It's just such a detriment to the world when we're not able to get that opportunity to hear that because the person may not have had a business to compliment that.

So I think there's multiple ways to do that. As I mentioned, e-commerce, affiliate links, actually having a service-based business.

But I would say that I wish when I started my podcast, I had bridged that gap a little bit better between Blue 16 Media and at that time, the CEO Chat Podcast, because I think that it would have benefited me better in the beginning.

But I think you should really have that because you're trading your time for creating these podcasts and creating that content and the sooner you realize or figure out a way by which you can make that revenue, then it provides you that opportunity to do that.

And in other ways there's obviously advertising and things, but you just have to have either really focused niche that you're really going to drill down on, or you have to have a tremendous amount of downloads.

So figuring out something that you can really niche down on that nobody else is doing and you can really provide that opportunity for potential advertisers to want to reach that target market, or you have so many downloads that people are beating down your door to be able to get on the, advertise on the podcast.

Rogier Giersthove 07:58

I found it interesting, especially when you're talking about the niching down or narrowing down your niche.

Because the question then comes to me, should you be an expert in the niche that you are podcasting about?

Gresham Harkless 08:13

No, I don't think so at all. And I think that case in point, what you're doing is phenomenal because I think so many times what I've benefited from is really learning from people.

So you don't have to be the person that is, you know, at the party, you don't have to be the person that's playing the music, that's cooking the food, that's letting people in, you can just be the person that's hosting the party.

And what I mean by that is you're the person that has the podcast, you have the platform. So you invite the experts on to really have those conversations.

And you try to ask really impactful value based questions so that you can get as much information and knowledge from them so that you're able to showcase that to your target market.

And when you're able to do that and you create that platform and that opportunity to do that, then you start to really provide a platform or create a platform that advertisers that people also that want to reach that target market want to be there as well.

So I think that's really the thing is that if you're not going to be the expert, if you're not doing solo podcasts and just talking from your experience, why not?

Or even if you do that, why not have some interview based podcast content within there so you can really learn from other people.

And I think that's one of the best ways to kind of, in my experience, sharpen the saw, so to speak, so that you're able to really get better and better and better at your craft.

Rogier Giersthove 09:33

Yeah, that's a really nice tip. Even though I'm wondering though, right? If let's say you have a lot of these interviews and you're only doing interviews, do you feel like it might give you more trouble to stand out from the other people that are also doing these interviews?

Gresham Harkless 09:50

It depends on the quality of the interviews. If you feel like they're quality interviews, then no.

And I think that it goes back to the question you talked about, about finding your voice. Because on the podcast, I often say that if you run your own race, you can never lose because so many times we get caught into looking over into the other lane on the right or the other lane on the left, trying to figure out what somebody else is doing.

And granted, there's a place for that and understanding the industry, understanding what's happening.

But I think that if you find your voice, there's gonna be people that might try to copy you, they might try to imitate, or you may find people that are doing some of the things that you're doing.

But you have to kind of ultimately stay true to yourself, cause I believe podcasting at its heart is about having a conversation.

And if you are able to have that conversation and do it in your own way with your own voice, even if people try to emulate or try to duplicate what you're doing, they're not gonna do it like you do.

And I think that you and us as podcasters have to always understand that we always should be evolving as well too.

We should be learning more about ourselves, getting closer to our voice. Cause I feel like if we are always in search of our voice and it's something that we never ever get to, we're always going to be improving.

We're gonna be trying to find a way to do this. We're gonna be trying out different things and we're gonna evolve as podcasters.

So I think it's to our detriment if we do not do that. And I think every time that we continue to have a podcast, continue to try out different things, continue to get closer and closer to finding our true authentic voice, then I think that's when no one else can beat you.

Rogier Giersthove 11:29

Yeah, interesting. How would you say you are, where do you think you are in the journey when it comes to finding your own voice?

Do you think you're like on somewhere close to being that entity that nobody can really copy or are you saying you're or are you thinking you're still miles away?

Gresham Harkless 11:49

Funny enough about me also very important is to know by self. I'm somebody who never ever wants to get close to the destination.

So I always feel like there's another level and I always feel like I can get better. It doesn't matter how many podcasts that I do.

I'll probably continue to say I'm not at that point. Matthew McConaughey has this, I think he won an Emmy or something.

And he had this interview where he basically said his hero was himself, I think it was 5 or 10 years from at that moment.

And he said that somebody went to him 5 years later, from that moment and asked them, have you met your hero? Are you at your hero? He's like, no, I haven't met my hero because my hero went 5 years more or 5 or 10 years more.

So if you're always kind of on that treadmill, you're always trying to reach your voice as we're talking about our perfection or success or however you define it, you'll never ever be kind of complacent.

You want to celebrate the wins and I make sure I try to balance that as much as possible. I could always do a better job.

But I think if I'm always kind of striving to be better, I'll never reach where I want to be. I never truly find my unique voice because it'll always be evolving.

So I don't want to, for me, I feel like that's what is the challenge. That's the exciting part is really, is exciting and also kind of crazy because you get kind of frustrated at certain times.

But if you can take a step back and say, hey, this is part of the process, then you'll never ever reach your destination.

If I feel like I reached my destination, I feel like I really probably didn't even set a goal that is ambitious enough.

Rogier Giersthove 13:29

Yeah, I really like it. So basically, it sounds like me, like you get a lot of fulfillment out of the process itself in comparison to looking at the wins.

And I like it because a lot of people talk about that, about being that way, but it's really hard for some people to get to that point unless they're inside the process themselves.

Gresham Harkless 13:55

Yeah, and that's what you find. I think that's the biggest thing I often ask on my podcast is like, if you hopped into a time machine, what would you tell your younger business self?

And that is probably the thing that I would tell myself because I think so many times we see somebody that's further along in the journey and we think that it is without pitfalls.

It is without mistakes. It is without not hitting the record button on a podcast interview that you did.

But you realize that as you hear people's stories more and more, you hear that they make those mistakes.

The difference is they get really wrapped into the process to get really wrapped into the progression and the journey.

And that's really where and how you reach success is not that that person woke up and then they were a podcaster. They did YouTube. They had a YouTube channel and they did all of those things.

And then they started to pivot and create things. But it was not just from day one, it was from day like 100,000 or something. Sometimes it feels like.

Rogier Giersthove 14:53

What I noticed in the past, and you probably noticed as well, is that blogging had its peak. And then basically kind of like died off as a subject and podcasting and video took its place in that step.

Well I was wondering right because podcasting has now been around for a while do you think people can still succeed if they start podcasting now?

Gresham Harkless 15:19

I think that, and even people that have been podcasting even longer than me, way longer than me, and definitely experts at that field have said that it's kind of a niche audience, but it is broadening where people are listening to the podcast.

But you kind of have a very specific type of person and usually time by which people are podcasting because a lot of podcasts are consumed when people are commuting.

And one of the reasons podcast downloads kind of dip during COVID is because everybody, there's a lot of disruption in so many different ways.

But also in ways people were listening and paying attention to podcasts, they were either, they might've been commuting, they might have been potentially doing it in the gym or listening to the podcast in the gym.

But all of those things were disrupted. So I think there's definitely an opportunity and it just depends on what success is, kind of like going back to those 3 questions I talked about, how you would define success and what exactly and who exactly you're trying to target.

Outro 16:19

Hello, hello, hello, this is Gresh again and I hope you enjoyed that special episode of the I AM CEO Podcast. Just Like I mentioned in the beginning, we're really trying to laser focus on these 8 pillars and show you as a builder how you can leverage these 8 pillars and really level up there so it helps to level up your business and organization.

So hope you enjoyed this episode and definitely please check out the show notes so you can learn more about the pillar, learn more about the person that I guested on, their episode, and of course learn more, a little bit more about us as well too. This is Gresh signing out. I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

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