Building A Binge-Worthy Podcast: Expert Tips From Rob Walch

Podcasting has become a game-changer in sharing stories, building brands, and connecting with audiences. Host Derek Dombeck welcomes Rob Walch, Vice President of Libsyn Enterprise and Platform Partnerships and a Podcasting Hall of Fame inductee, to dive into essential podcast tips. From starting your show to growing an audience and monetizing effectively, Rob shares actionable advice drawn from his 20+ years of podcasting experience. Whether you’re just launching or looking to refine your approach, this episode is packed with practical insights to help you succeed.

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Watch the episode here

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Building A Binge-Worthy Podcast: Expert Tips From Rob Walch

I have to tell you that I got some good life lessons out of this episode. Rob Walch, when I bring him on, is an incredible resource when it comes to podcasting. That is the topic for this episode. Why should you start a podcast? How do you do all the things? One of my big lessons was I need to interact with my audience more than we do. When we get to the end of the show, you will have my personal email and some other information but I want to express how important this show is to myself and my staff.

We want you to know that this is a family to us. If there’s anything we can do to help you, don’t hesitate to reach out. TheGenerationsOfWealth.com is the parent site for everything that we do but by all means, if you have a question or you want to see something or hear something on the show like a topic, reach out and let us know. I am excited to bring on Rob Walch from Libsyn. Libsyn is a podcast hosting company. Without any further ado, let’s do it.

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Without any further delay, we bring on Mr. Rob Walch. Rob, thank you for joining us.

Derek, thanks for having me on the show. I appreciate it.

Rob Walch’s Journey To Podcasting And Early Challenges

Rob, we chatted a little bit before we started recording the show. The Generations of Wealth Podcast has been going on for a while. I’ve got ideas and questions. This is very timely for me. I love having a show that helps other people but is also self-serving. It’s fantastic. Before we get into any of that, give us a little bit of your background. How did you get into podcasting? Specifically, where did you start?

I was lucky. I got into podcasting at the very beginning back in 2004. Those may have been 100 of us podcasting when I started. It was pure luck. I finished up my MBA at UConn and was looking for a hobby. There in October 2004, I heard about this thing called podcasting and I said, “I want to do that.” I was one of those nerds that used to call into the radio station. I said, “I should do that.” I came up with a podcast called Podcast 411.

It was the first podcast about podcasting. I interviewed other podcasters and that led to my job with Libsyn. Libsyn was the first podcasting hosting company. They also started in November 2004. In 2007, they hired me and said, “You talk about us all the time. Why don’t you come to work for us?” I said, “Sure.” I’ve been with Libsyn for many years running podcaster relations. It’s great and a lot of fun. I got to meet tons and tons of podcasters over the years. Podcasting has been my life.

That’s crazy because so many people out there probably don’t even realize that it’s been around for many years. I didn’t, honestly. With Libysn and going back a couple of steps before you start with Libsyn, what was the goal? Did you think you could make money at this? Was this a side gig?

Initially, it was a side gig. I was VP of Sales and Marketing for an electronics company that makes quartz crystal oscillators. I was traveling all around the world. I did 5 trips to China in 1 year, to India, Israel, and Brazil. I was looking at this as a hobby, something I could do in a hotel room. Rather than playing poker or watching porn, I was like, “There’s that other P thing called Podcast. That one’s probably less destructive of my life.” I went with the third P being Podcasting and dabbled a little in poker still.

I stayed out of that when I was traveling and I started recording. I recorded an episode on a plane traveling to China one time back in 2004. I did a lot of editing on the plane. It was something for me to do. I had a lot of free time. I then got hooked on it quickly. Fast forward from October 2004 to April 2005, I quit my six-figure job to do podcasting with no plans or good ideas on how I was going to make the income other than, “I’m here. I’m first talking about it.”

I had one client who was Senator John Edwards, who had run for vice president. I was doing his podcast. That was my first client. I had a decent first client. I did production work for him and then started consulting for others. Ultimately, in hindsight, I should have milked the day job a lot longer than I did. I jumped away from the salary way too soon. My big advice to people is to make sure when you quit the day job, you have to quit it. Not that you want to quit it but you have to quit it. It’s costing you money to keep doing the day job and I didn’t do that. That was a mistake in hindsight.

What I’m hearing is you should have started a podcast about pokers and porn. It sounds like that could have been a real hit back then.

Poker is still a side hobby but not like podcasting. Podcasting took over and it worked out for me. I cannot complain at the end of the day. The results were pretty good. I got a kid going to Purdue University with no student loans. When you look at it, he’s going to graduate from one of the best engineering schools in the country with no student loans. From that perspective as a parent, I feel I’ve done pretty well.

Did you just dabble in poker?

I went and played out in the World Series of Poker. I was a pretty good poker player. I played in a home game every week in Kansas City and it was three guys with World Series of Poker bracelets. I’m pretty good. When I go out to Vegas for trips, there’s a 50% chance I’m going to win one of those tournaments that I get into or cash out I should say. I split the pot.

I have three buddies in Nashville and they’re real estate investors. They run a lending company. They met by playing poker years ago. They’ve dabbled a little bit in the World Series but with no bracelets.

I don’t have a bracelet.

I love getting together with those guys. They’re a part of a circle, Trust Mastermind, that I host. When we play poker and I beat them, it’s pure luck but it is so much fun for me because I am a very obnoxious winner only when I beat them. I’m not that good.

It’s better to be lucky than good. A lot of people draw out on you. That’s the part about poker if you don’t realize. You can be the best poker player. You can play it perfectly right and still lose. You can not know what you’re doing go all in and knock a couple of people out because you drew out on a gut shot straight draw.

Key Lessons For New Podcasters: Setting Realistic Goals

There’s something to be said about winning on the river, picking up your chips, and walking away. Back to the show. When I started The Generations of Wealth Podcast, it was because I was advised to do it. It wasn’t necessarily that I wanted to do it. We’ve been doing it for a long, I love it. It’s a passion of mine. Let’s start at the beginning for somebody reading this who’s like, “I don’t even know the first thing about it. I wouldn’t know how to start, why I should do it, or who would listen to it?” It’s all the common questions. Let’s start at the bottom and work our way to the top.

I always say pick a subject you’re passionate about. What are the podcasts that you’re listening to? Are you listening to podcasts? What are they? Do a podcast on that topic. It’s something you seem to be passionate about as I tell people. They’re like, “I don’t want to do it. Someone’s already covering it.” I always say, “What about I dream of Jeannie and the Munsters? Did you like those television shows? They were pretty good but all they were Bewitched and The Addams Family.”

Even if someone else is doing the same show, when you do it, you’re going to bring your personality to it, which will make it different. Even though there may be somebody who’s doing a poker podcast, if you want to do a podcast on poker, do it. You’re going to bring your personality and that will be different. There are lots of interview podcasts but you’re going to bring your personality to that, ask different questions, and have a different experience range.

It’s the reason why Joe Rogan is so popular. It’s because he brings his personality to it. I’ve known Joe since he started. His show grew over time because the guy knows so many different topics. When he gets impassionate about a topic, then he brings guests on around that topic. He has an entertaining show but he doesn’t try to make it too short and that’s a go for a long time, three hours on episodes. I realize he’s a unicorn and you’re not going to get Joe Rogan numbers but you can get decent numbers.

A perfect example I have of a podcast was one on pneumatic valves. The person was getting 600 listens per episode. The company he was working for wanted to shut the podcast down. I said, “What? You’re getting 600 downloads for a podcast about pneumatic valves? What did you think you were going to get?” He started thinking about it. I’m like, “Did you ever speak at a conference?” He’s like, “Yeah.”

I’m like, “How many people were in the room?” He’s like, “About 200.” I go, “Let’s say 100 of them were checking emails. You had 100 paying attention at the conference. You get six times that showing up every week to listen to your podcast. How much did they spend to send you to that conference? You’re spending less than that per year to do the podcast.” If you can pick up a small niche audience like 200 to 400, that’s a successful podcast.

The median number of downloads per show on Libsyn, and we’re the biggest, is about 150 per episode after 30 days. That means half the podcast episodes that get released get less than 150 downloads per episode. If you can get to 500, that’s your first goal. You’re completely away from friends, family, and acquaintances. You’ve picked up people that didn’t know who you were before you started the podcast. 1) Passion. 2) Set your expectations right. People come into it thinking they’re going to get millions of downloads but set it for hundreds and then go from there.

How often you release your shows would be one factor but what would the expectations be? I’ve had people ask me, “Your show has been going for a while. How’s it doing?” I said, “I didn’t come into this expecting to have 10,000 downloads per episode for a long time.” It’s a slow burn but there is that snowball effect eventually if you stick with it. What do you see at Libsyn as the average ramp-up for a show let’s say that releases once a week? What can somebody expect with consistency? I don’t know this number. You probably do but most podcasters never make it past episode ten and they quit or something like that.

We call it podfade. There are two places where they fade out before episode ten. It’s usually around episode 5 and then around episode 50. There are two completely different reasons. The ones that podfade before episode ten go, “This is harder than I thought.” I want to be clear. Podcasting is harder than blogging and doing short-form quick videos in your car or TikTok video.

With podcasting, you want to do it right. It takes planning and good editing. There’s that group that podfade before episode ten. It’s usually in episode five and they’re like, “This is more work than I thought.” There’s the episode 50 group. We looked into why people are podfading around 50 episodes. It was because they said, “I’m going to do this for a year. I’m going to do it once a week.” At the end of the year, they didn’t hit the numbers they thought they were going to hit. They’re like, “I’m never going to get to 10,000 or 5,000.”

Most people never do. If they had known that going in, maybe their expectations would have been more realistic and they wouldn’t quit but consistently releasing it every week around the same time the same day is one of the keys. US listeners have a mindset that they have brought up their A-team friends. Battlestar Galactica was on the same day every week. The X Files was Friday night. You knew when it was the show was coming out. If you can get your audience into that weekly cadence knowing when your next episode’s coming out, that helps in growing your show.

I do think the biggest mistake people make when they get in is they set the level of where they think their podcast is going to get numbers-wise too high. It’s not realistic. If you get 5,000 downloads per episode, you’re in the top 5.7% of shows. That means over 94% of shows never get to 5,000 downloads per episode. You need to put that expectation. 1 out of 20 shows is going to get to 5,000 per episode. Depending on your topic, your ceiling may be pneumatic valves. I don’t know how the guy got 600. There’s another podcast on chameleon breeding. He gets 800 an episode. I don’t know how he even gets that number. There is a ceiling depending on your topic.

I believe that you’re episode number 46 so I may flame out in a few more episodes.

I hope not. You are getting an audience that shows up every week and it’s a core audience. Is this an audience you had a year ago? No, this is new people that are following you. I hope you continue. A lot of people don’t build up that big audience until the third or fourth year. In the first 20 to 25 episodes, you’re worrying about all the wrong things like, “Is this thing recording? Are my levels right?”

You’re to the point where you’re starting to think about, “What did he say? Should I follow up on that?” That’s not even something we talked about. You’re starting to get to the point of an interview where you’re thinking about the guest rather than the equipment and the recording. That’s when you start hitting your stride as an interviewer.

I would say that for sure the first dozen episodes, you’re more worried in your headspace about effing things up than having a good time. I love having a good time with all of my guests. The reality is these are not live shows. If you and I say something wrong or screw something up bad, we can pause, start again, and edit it out. The audience who’s reading this, we’re not going to edit this out. This is part of the education. They know internally that the shows are edited but yet they don’t care.

I don’t care that somebody edits their show. I love the raw material. We do very little editing as far as our content. We edit intros and outros. I like the mistakes because it shows that Rob Walch and Derek Dombeck are real people. Those are the types of shows I want to listen to. I don’t like all the fluff and the stuff that is out there where everybody’s only talking about what went well and all the perfect unicorns and rainbows in their life. That’s not real life. That’s not what The Generations of Wealth is about for sure.

You have to pick how you want to do it as an interviewer. I always went with heavy editing, where I would tell the guests up front. I edit oftentimes heavily. I will start reanswering a question because I don’t like the way I started to ask the question. I’m ADHD. I’m all over the place sometimes. If I don’t like where that question went after I asked it, I’m like, “Let’s go back and let me reask that.”

Conversely, I’ll say to my guests, “I edit heavily. At any point in time, if you want me to re-edit a question and answer, let me know.” I always felt that put them at ease a little bit rather than saying, “This is live.” I’m telling them, “This is the tape and this will be edited. Don’t worry if you messed up.” Most of the time, I didn’t have to clean up anything because I put them at ease. I found that by setting their minds at ease, they were less anxious.

A lot of times, I was interviewing people and this was the first time they had ever been interviewed. It made them feel a little bit more comfortable. That was a trick I used for interviewing, telling people that I was going to edit so that they felt more comfortable. It’s something to think about. Even if you don’t plan to edit, tell them you’re going to edit. They’ll feel more comfortable and you’ll have less editing to do. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I told Rob we were going to edit the hell out of this show so he’s at ease. It’s going well.

I mess up. I don’t do live. People are like, “Why don’t you do live streaming?” I’m like, “That’s not me. That’s not where I feel comfortable.” Some people are good at it. That’s not who I am.

If you’re editing, you can cut things down to a certain length. We keep our shows between 30 and 45 minutes but is there data out there that says, “This is the best-performing length of show?”

The number one question is, “What’s the right length?” When I go through all the questions that come in from people who are starting, they say, “What’s the right length?” I tell people, “There is no right length.” There is no answer to that question. Anyone who tells you there is an exact answer, you hear people go, “Twenty-two minutes is the right length.” Those people come from the radio. They don’t know podcasting.

When you look at the top 200 episodes in Apple Podcasts, you can look at the length of those and the median for the top 200 is about 65 minutes. The average is a little bit higher than that. The biggest podcasts tend to be longer. Joe Rogan is 2.5 to 3 hours per episode. Hardcore History is six hours per episode. What I try to tell folks is there’s no such thing as too long, only too boring.

If you’ve got 45 minutes of content, do a 45-minute episode. If the next episode you have 90 minutes, do 90. If the next episode you got 50, do 50. I used to shoot for a minimum of 35. Anything over that was gravy. The way I always equate it is there are two ways to look at this. One is Star Wars Episode 1. That was 15 minutes that George Lucas spread out over 2 hours. That didn’t work. Game of Thrones, the final season, was 16 episodes they shrunk into 6. That didn’t work either.

Trying to take too much content into a short period can be as detrimental as trying to take very little content and spread it out over too long a period. If you have 15 minutes of content, do 15. If you got 35, do 35. If you got 45, do 45. Don’t set an artificial length going, “If it’s more than 45, people aren’t going to listen.” The most popular podcasts are well over an hour. Don’t worry about the length.

Audio-Only Podcasts Vs. Adding Video Elements

That’s a great answer because I get asked that all the time and I never thought about it. I said, “I want to have a good conversation with my guests.” I don’t want to cut you off mid-thought or mid-discussion. We’re going to end it when it’s a natural spot to end. It’s always worked for us and I love it. What are your thoughts on audio and video podcasts versus just audio?

There’s a lot of pressure for people to do videos. I will tell you this. Depending on who your target is, business-oriented podcasts, there’s more time in the day to listen to audio than there is video. It’s when you’re driving in the car, working out, or walking the dog. There’s much more time in the day to consume audio than any other form of medium.

Audio tends to be in your ear and head so you have a much better connection with people rather than watching it on a screen and hearing it from speakers where you’re disconnected from it. I am still an audio first-person. I believe that that’s great where you need to be in audio because of the opportunity. If you can do video with the audio, wonderful but if you’re doing a solo show and a lot of editing and your cuts and you’ve got segments, that video doesn’t make a lot of sense for that.

If you’re doing an interview show and the value of the video is seeing us, you’re not going to get anything more from watching this other than I’m a Dayton Flyer fan, which you wouldn’t have gotten otherwise. The value is what we take. Think about audio first. Make sure your podcast is on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Deezer, Gaana, and JioSaavn. If you have a tech podcast, you want to be in geo solvent and Ghana because they hit the Indian market very well. It’s the same if you have a medical podcast. You need to know based on your podcast where it needs to go out to.

I’m an audio first. It’s easier to do audio than it is to do video. It’s cheaper to do audio than it is to do video. You can level set and sound just as good as NPR, Joe Rogan, and Hardcore History with an audio podcast with a $150 mic and a quiet room. Getting started, it’s much easier to break into audio than it is video. On top of that, when you look at audio podcasts, people misunderstand how big podcasting is. It’s a lot smaller than they think.

There are only about 350,000 active podcasts that have released a new episode in the last 90 days and have 10 or more episodes. That is it. That’s your big competitors out there in the podcast space. In the video world, you’re competing with tens and tens of millions of YouTubers, Instagrammers, live sports, Netflix, HBO Max, and Amazon Prime. There is so much more you’re competing with on the video side than you do on the audio side.

Tips For Monetizing Podcasts With Small And Large Audiences

For me, we do both. We released the video stuff on YouTube. I’ll call them discussions but they were more along the lines of demands from my previous marketing director with my quality of lighting and everything from the video side. This was supposed to be so important and it’s going to bring us so much potential business and money. I do want to talk about monetizing podcasts but it gave me anxiety.

I’m like, “I want to have a conversation with Rob. I don’t want to care that my ring light is giving me a circle on my fricking glasses.” That was all I would focus on and it pissed me off. Finally, I said, “It’s my show. I’m going to do what I want to do. If the audience is going to be nitpicking because I have a shadow on the right side of my face and not the left, I’m over that.” There the audience now knows how much I don’t give a damn about my video quality but I give a damn about my show, my guests, and what we’re bringing to the audience.

If you can build up an audience on the podcast side, you can monetize well with audio. Programmatic ads can go in there. In Libsyn, we can get you into auto ads and bring advertising into your show. If you get to 20,000 downloads an episode, then we can bring you host-read ads. You can make a lot of money off of that. There are different ways to monetize beyond advertising. There are premium offerings where you can offer some content for free and some premium.

Sam Harris is an example of someone who makes half the episode available for free. If you want the full episode, you have to pay a premium to get access to this content. Some people do it where it’s an ad-free premium and you listen to ads for the free version of the show. You pay to hear an episode without ads. There are a lot of different ways that you can do the premium, freemium model. Some people do a hybrid. They have ads and premium. They have some premium extra content that goes out on that. Even with the premium extra content, you can still hear ads. It depends on what you feel comfortable for your audience.

The number one way to get started in making money clearly is by getting some programmatic ads thrown in like radio ads. That doesn’t require a lot of downloads. It does require at least 2,000 a month. If you’re anything less than that, it doesn’t make any sense. I get people all the time who email me, “I’m launching my show and I’m ready for ads.” I’m like, “No. You launch your show, build an audience, and then become ready for ads.” Some people put the cart well before the horse.

What do you feel is the best grassroots way to grow your show if you’re just getting started beyond friends and family?

First off, there are no silver bullets. There are services out there that claim they’re going to guarantee audience growth. You’d pay $4,000 and some stupid amount of money for guaranteed audience growth. It’s all BS. At the end of the day, they’re giving you downloads and not giving you an audience. When you turn off the marketing picket to those services, the audience completely goes away. On top of that, when we look at those shows in our system, we know that those are bogus downloads and we don’t even allow you to advertise if you’re paying for downloads.

How To Grow And Sustain A Podcast Audience Effectively

The shortest answer is consistency in content, making sure you’re releasing on a regular basis, interacting with your audience, and getting your audience to be acolytes and advocates for your show. Libsyn looked at shows that launched with 1, 3, 5, and 10 episodes. Apple looked at 1 through 20. What we found is shows that launched with 1 and 3 six months later were doing better than shows that launched with 5 and much better than shows that launched with 10. Apple found that two was the ideal number of episodes to launch with.

The reasoning for this shows that launch with 1, 2, or 3 episodes more than likely than not said, “I would like to listen to your feedback. Be part of the show. Here’s a call-in number and Gmail address. Send us your feedback and emails. We’ll read them and play it on the show.” They interacted with their audience so their audience helped grow their show. People who launched with ten said to the audience, “We don’t want you as part of the show. You’re not part of the show. You’re never going to be part of the show. Just listen. Be where you are but you’re not part of the show.” They had more of a standoffish feel and never clicked with their audience.

One thing I say to help grow your show is to interact with your audience. Answer every email, read them when you can, and put it at the end of the episode. You do an interview episode and at the end of the episode, you have listener feedback. It gets them excited about it. The next thing is being a guest on other people’s podcasts and having them be a guest on yours. Interview people who aren’t typically podcasters on your podcast. Maybe a blog. You’re doing a podcast on getting on a pneumatic valve. You find out who’s the biggest guy in the pneumatic valve blogging world and bring him on as a guest on your show. He mentions your podcast on his blog or Reddit channel. You get an audience.

Bringing on people who do videos so that they mention you on their TikTok or Instagram. If you’re doing stuff that’s a little bit more geared towards women or people under 35, do it. It does depend a lot on what your topic is and where that audience is going to be and then interacting with people in what are some of the more popular non-podcasting venues for that kind of content. Whatever you do, don’t pay money for someone who guarantees audience growth because they’re ripping you off. Submit your podcast everywhere. Make sure you’re on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, iHeart, and Deezer.

Being a newbie, how do you do that? “I want to start a podcast. I have no idea.” What does Libsyn do? What’s available out there that’s important?

Libsyn: What It Does And How It Helps Podcasters

For a lot of people who don’t know who Libsyn is, we’ve been out there. We were the first podcast hosting company. We’re behind the scenes. Joe Rogan did four and a half billion downloads with us. It’s where Marc Maron started. Bill Maher has his podcast there. Also, Bill Burr and a whole bunch of other big celebrities. What Libsyn does is host your files, get the metrics, and help you distribute out.

We help you get into Apple, Spotify, Deezer, Gaana, and JioSaavn. A lot of people don’t realize when you go and listen to a podcast on Apple Podcasts. The file isn’t being hosted by Apple. It’s being hosted by Libsyn or one of our competitors. You need to have those files on a third-party server. You need to have an RSS feed that’s RSS 2.0 compliant, which is what you’re going to get from Libsyn. You want to have IAB stats. That’s important if you’re going to do monetization down the line.

Any advertiser worth their salt is going to say, “Are your stats IAB certified?” I was on the committee that wrote the spec so I’m a little biased there. It’s important because it gives a sense of authority on the stats but it also is a CYA for the media buyers. They ask, “Are they certified? Yes or no?” That’s where Libsyn comes in. It’s easy. All you have to do is have an audio file and some artwork and sign up for an account. For $20 a month, you’re going to get detailed stats, not just how many downloads you’re getting but geographically where those downloads are coming from.

You asked before we started, “Do you have a giveaway?” Sure. It’s a promo code, Podcast 411. That will get you the rest of this month free and all of next month free. I hate to be all salesy but you can try it out and see if podcasting is for you. You can at least get to episode five and quit before you have to pay. If you realize it’s too much work, you bail and never have to pay a dime.

We’ll have that linked up at TheGenerationsOfWealth.com/BeAHost. That’ll take you over to that information. You can put that promo code in.

I’ll do this too. I’ll give you my email, Rob@Libsyn.com. It stands for Liberated Syndication. That’s the other beauty of Libsyn. We do not censor. We are a strong advocate of free speech. We’ve got democracy and the best of the left on one side. We’ve got Roseanne Barr and the right report. Dr Savage is on the other side. We’ve got a Libertarian podcast. Libsyn is not left-leaning or right-leaning. We’re free speech. We support everybody.

We have the biggest religious podcast like Joyce Meyers, the Vatican, and the Mormon Church. We have the biggest atheist podcasts like The Skeptics Guide to the Universe, Skeptoid, and Skepticality. We are a place for everyone. That is our name, Liberated Syndication. We truly believed in free speech before some people tried to politicize free speech. We go along with the EFF and Apple. Apple’s good about free speech. Spotify, not so much. Apple is good.

Here’s a self-serving question for me. When you’ve had a third party hosting all of your stuff and you want to take it in-house or move to a different third-party hosting, how do you keep your prior shows and content?

It’s easy. All the episodes are in your RSS feed. The new host you’re going to move to will import all the files of your RSS feed and then you put a redirect where your current feed is to the new feed. If you’re hosting with Libsyn, we allow you to put that redirect in yourself. We do not believe in locking people down. We make it easy for you to leave if you want to leave. We want you to stay with us because you want to stay with us. Not because you have to.

No matter where you’re hosting, you will be able to import those files out of that to the new host. In some of them, you’ll be able to put the redirect in yourself. Podbean allows you to add that in yourself. They’re a good company as well. There are other companies other than Libsyn but Podbean does it ethically right as well. Although, there are some that if you want to add the redirect in, you have to go and contact their support team, which is a pain but no matter what, they’ll put it in for you. Nobody wants to be called out on social media for locking a podcast up. That’s for sure.

We’re coming up on episode 50 and it has been a great learning curve. You didn’t know what you didn’t know when you started and that’s why I love having you on the show to answer some of the stuff that I didn’t know when I got started. I can say this. If you do it right, I believe it is so rewarding. I didn’t start The Generations of Wealth Podcast to monetize it but do I get business and networks? Of course. That is a by-product of having a show or being on a stage somewhere. You become the “expert,” whether you are or not.

I want to encourage everybody reading this that if you’ve got a message and something you can help people with, even if you don’t want to do your show, get out there and try to be guests on other people’s shows. There is a point in time as a podcast host where I’m not going to say we run out of guests but we run out of quality guests. We do turn people away. We won’t just put anybody on the show. That’s a great way to get out there and at least test the water. See if you want to have your own show. I was on about 45 or 50 other shows before I ever started my own. It was great.

I don’t know if people are familiar with a podcast called Duct Tape Marketing by John Jantsch. He has a consulting platform and books. You can look up Duct Tape Marketing. You’ll see it’s pretty popular. He grew his consultancy but he started the podcast back in 2005 or 2006. I was talking to him. He started the podcast to grow his consulting business. He was doing marketing consulting.

He realized that if you send an email to somebody who was a potential client and says, “I’m doing marketing. I think I can be of service to your company,” it’s a cold call. You don’t get anything. If you went to that same client and you said, “I see you the CEO of this company. You’re brilliant and your brilliance would be wonderful to be shared on my podcast. Would you like to be a guest?” Playing to that ego of the potential client got replies. He then got into an interview and a conversation with them. In the end, he goes, “If you ever need any marketing help, that’s what I do on the side.” he got a lot of clients that way.

Starting a podcast to do an interview with your potential clients, who your target clients are, is a great way to open the door rather than a cold call email, and email inviting them in to share their intelligence and wisdom. You’ll be amazed at how many replies you get when you do that versus the cold call email trying to sell. That’s a great reason to start a podcast.

This is a great example, Rob, because you and I talked before we started recording. I don’t currently use Libsyn. Libsyn is at the top of our list of who we will most likely start using moving forward. You and I having this conversation for 35 to 40 minutes has solidified that decision for me. Before, all I knew about Libsyn quite frankly was what my staff was telling me, “This is who I think we should go to.”

These conversations matter. The people I interview on this show matter. Here’s a little nugget for those of you who want to start a podcast. The conversation you have before and after you record with your guest can be extremely powerful and lead to opportunities that you cannot possibly imagine. As Rob and I stop recording, we may stay on the call for 5 to 10 minutes and chat. You never know where that can lead. I’ve got some very nice referrals and other things from that type of stuff.

The green room conversations are sometimes the best. Sometimes I’ve been in those where you’re like, “Wait a second. We have to stop talking about this. We got to save that for the show.”

Time did go by pretty quickly on this one. I appreciate you and your time. I asked this for most of my guests. What’s the one question I should have asked you that I didn’t?

Closing Advice For Aspiring Podcasters And Staying Consistent

Thankfully, you didn’t ask any on the tech side because people overrate the tech side. You’re using a Yeti mic and I’m using a Yeti mic here. A lot of times, people get too obsessed with the tech. Just have a quiet room and a good mic. That’s the best recording setup. What’s the best recording setup? There is no great answer to that. What I tell people is don’t spend more than $200 on your equipment when you’re getting started.

It’s like a hobby. If you start golfing, you don’t go and buy the best-paying golf clubs and get them custom-fit. You want to go to Goodwill and get cheap clubs. Go out and see if this thing’s even for you if you’re going to start golfing. That’s what I started with my kids. The first clubs were from Goodwill. I didn’t go and buy them brand new clubs until later after they showed that they like golfing.

Podcasting is the same thing. Have a halfway decent mic like the Yeti and Shure SM58 in a quiet room. You’d be amazed at how good it can sound. Later on, you can add a RØDECaster and all this other equipment and other stuff. To start with, don’t spend a lot. Don’t waste your money until you get past that 5 or 10 points and you’re like, “This is for me.”

A lot of people will start podcasting and not make it to five. They’re going to use that promo code Podcast 411. You’re not going to spend any money but you’re going to get to episode five. You go, “Rob, this is harder than you even said it was going to be.” Other people are going to be like, “This is great. I love this.” For those people, great. Those are the ones that we’re going to hopefully make it past episode 50. Keep your expectations right.

I want to say to the rest of the audience that we do have a Facebook group for The Generations of Wealth. We do want your feedback. I don’t say it often enough so this is a good reminder to me. I don’t typically give out my personal email address but I do want to hear your feedback. I do want to help you and talk to you. If you ever want to reach out to me, you can find me at TheGenerationsOfWealth.com and certainly get to me that way.

The easy button is Derek@GOWGlobal.com. Shoot me an email. It is monitored by myself and my assistant to make sure we don’t miss it. The whole point of the show is to give back and help people. Rob, I truly appreciate your time. It’s a fun episode. It was helpful to everybody else but self-serving to me because I wanted to make this a better show. I appreciate that.

Derek, thank you for having me on. Hopefully, some folks will have a New Year’s resolution of getting to at least episode 50 throughout 2025.

I’m thinking about starting another show about pokers and porn as another part of this. We’ll see. I’ll have you back on if it’s the Pokers and Porn Show.

Pokers, Porn, and Podcasting. I can talk about poker too much. I can’t talk about the other one. I’d stay away from that. It’s been a while. My wife gives me grief about my poker playing.

Thank you. We will talk to you real soon. To everybody else, thanks for being a part of the show. Check us out on the next episode. Until then, go out, live your vision, and love your life. See you.

Important Links

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About Rob Walch

Rob Walch was inducted into the Podcasting Hall of Fame in 2016.