So many people want to start their own podcast and have the hopes and dreams of making a huge success of their efforts. But unfortunately nowadays 85% of new podcasts fail to make the mark that they want as they dont understand the whole picture. You see when you want to start a podcast you have to understand how the podcast fits into everything else in your business. You have to understand that the podcast is nothing more than a vitally important component to the marketing funnel. What you say ?? A Marketing funnel....what's a marketing funnel? Well my young podcasting padawans, the marketing funnel is the key component that brings it all together. Without one of these then the podcast wont do anything at all. Ready to understand more?? What Is The Key To Start Your Own Podcast Ok lets look at it as a whole. A podcast is simply free content that people listen to. You cant make any money from a podcast on its own. You have to add something to the podcasts value where others will then add their own value to it and pay you. So if you get a huge audience then companies will want to sponsor your podcast and you have found that value. You have an audience of people, that someone else wants to get in front of KERCHING. That is the Start Your Own Podcast strategy that most people aim for at the beginning, but believe me this is the wrong way to go. You are giving away massive real estate and equity in your podcast. Why would you get £20 per listener, instead of finding out what those listeners really want and get £500 from each. Well we wouldn't, its a stupid route to go. Instead we want to provide products that we can sell on our own. We want to make sure that every person who hits Join Up Dots becomes a potential customer. And that leads us onto the next piece of the Start Your Own Podcast puzzle. Why Is My Podcast Not Delivering The Cash A podcast can fall between two rocks quite easily, and that is not a good thing as I will explain. A podcast can either be fall of brilliant information that people listen to and go "Yay that was great...thank you" Or it can be really entertaining that people listen and go "Yay that was fun...thank you" If you are doing either of these then you are doing something wrong, and will struggle to get the cash you deserve. In my view a podcast is about bringing the potential problems to people that they haven't thought about. You release your podcast episode and talk about how much you know about a subject, wanting them to be as good as you. Think about a chef on the tv, that is cooking some amazing meal right in front of your eyes. Do you simply watch and then run to the kitchen and make what you have seen? No of course you dont, as you saw and thought "Wow", but also thought "I'll never be able to do this on my own" So what do you do? You get onto Amazon and buy the book that the chef has out at that time that shows you the recipe they have just presented to you. They know that you cant just watch and copy, they know they will be selling a lot more books, so they show the best meal that they can to wow you. They are showing off in-front of you. They are saying to you "Look I am great at this, and you can be too.....with my help" They are making money as they have presented the problem to you, and made you realise your knowledge gap.