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Today is an extra special edition of The Solopreneur Hour. Not only am I joined by three friends and veterans of the show but all four of us are coming to you via Creative Live. John, Greg, Nick and myself are talking podcasting and giving our individual input on how to podcast, how to monetize podcasting and how to make a legitimate living doing so.

It is an honor and a privilege to have these guys on the show and to be side by side with them for Creative Live. To find out exactly what Creative Live is and to listen in on our pre-Creative Live dinner conversation and a whole lot more, join us for the 176th episode of The Solopreneur Hour.

More About This Show

Originally our friend of the show Mr. John Lee Dumas was invited to join Alex Blumberg (formerly of NPR) to Creative Live. Alex was doing two days of material on podcasting, and he invited John to spend the first day opening for him. And John, being the generous and savvy man he is, invited the three of us to take a segment of that first day. And that’s how Nick, Greg and myself came to be on Creative Live.

We each will do a 90-minute session on a different aspect of podcasting and are all stoked for it! Greg will speak on the topic of using mobile technology in the podcasting world. He’s also preparing to launch a product in early November and is going full speed ahead after taking time off for his honeymoon. Today he shares what he gets excited about in his working life and how he unplugs.

Our other guest, John Lee Dumas, will be talking about starting a podcast and monetizing it on his segment of Creative Live. And on this show he discusses his approach to work/life balance: he says he’s either all in or all out! There’s no medium range with him during the workday.

And our  third guest, Nick Unsworth, is talking about video podcasting for Creative Live. He’ll dive into the differences between video and regular podcasting. He’s spent 9 months learning the good, the bad and the ugly. He’ll talk about the massive mistakes he made and how you can avoid them!

For example, video podcasts are much bigger than audio podcasts so if you host them via Libsyn it’s going to take a lot more bandwidth…and it will cost a LOT more. The other snag he ran into was getting fast downloads for people; the video files were too big in the beginning and it would take forever to download! He learned some great “not to dos” and tells us what they are.

The finer details of the show include:

• How do we step away from business, when there’s still work to do?
• Who have I only recorded in person with, never on Skype?
• The advantages of video podcasting, and how much more work it is.
• Why you need to celebrate and reward yourself.
• What’s the “you know how” approach and how can you use it?
• Which of the four of us was on the Price Is Right?
• And so much more!

We also talk about how to master your calendar. Each of us have different strategies. Nick and I give ourselves extra time to explore and take some down time when we travel for business. John is adopting this strategy with Entrepreneur on Fire in the upcoming months and he shares with us a breakdown of what he does each day of the week too.

On a related note, Greg asks John how he chooses which event he speaks at it. John says if it’s not a “Hell yes!” then it’s a no. But that’s where he is at with his business right now, when he was starting out he did anything and everything to drive his business forward. You need to say yes and build momentum, but once you have it then you use the “hell yes” approach to qualify each event.

John goes on to give the example of Derek Halpern who did 100 presentations in 2013! He did it because he figured he’d get a ton of benefit out of it. But looking back, he saw he didn’t get anything substantial out of it and completely reconfigured his 2014. Now he only does things that are scalable and can be leveraged, which is the same approach John is taking for events in 2015.

All four of us speak on the versatility of podcasting, we all do and approach it differently. And each of us talk about how we explain what we do for work. For John he uses Cliff Ravenscraft’s definition: “I host an Internet talk radio show.” Nick tells everyone he helps people love what they do for work and then goes on to explain how he provides content to change people’s lives. Greg typically says “Why don’t you tell me about what you do first?” and then he modifies what he says to best fit the scenario. I tell people I’m an online radio host, I’m like a talk show host.

After discussing those topics we move to dinner. One of the topics we discuss post-dinner is the future of podcasting and how it fits in each of our strategies for the upcoming year.

Nick believes we’ll see a lot more celebrities and bigger names coming into the podcasting world. And that’s a great thing: the market is very open and nowhere near saturation, big names are going to bring in even more listeners for all of us. He’s going to be doing a lot more “how to” videos and getting those on YouTube and he explains why.

John answers the same question: he sees a lot of “real talent” coming to the podcasting world. He goes into detail about why he believes Alex left NPR and his comfortable world there. John says he’s stepping up his game and going from a small fish to a big fish in the podcasting world! If John says there are big fish coming in it’s time to pay attention.

Greg believes we need to focus on the business side of podcasting and when we do that will get us over the hurdles and the challenges we all face when growing our podcast. It’s using podcasting as a tool to grow our businesses and build authority using podcasting.

It’s all about being intentional in how podcasting plays a role in our overall business models. He recommends putting a lot of thought into how podcasting supports our overall lifestyle – what can we experiment with and shift to create the life and the work we really love?

We also chat about entertainment vs content in podcasting, what our dream podcasts are, and a whole lot more. Every aspect of this show was incredible – from our conversation pre- and post-dinner to Creative Live was one of my favorite events this year. I cannot imagine having been with better company for such an amazing experience. Thank you for being here Greg, John and Nick and thanks to all of you for listening in. We’ll see you next time!

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Episode Resources

Greg Hickman’s web site
John Lee Dumas’ web site
Nick Unsworth’s web site
Creative Live: Podcasting 101 with me, John Lee Dumas, Nick Unsworth and Greg Hickman
The Solopreneur Hour on Twitter
The Solopreneur Hour on Instagram
Proudly Unemployable, the Facebook group
SoloLab: A Unique Mastermind
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