DARRELL DARNELL STARTED A PODCAST AND THEN EVERYTHING CHANGED
POP 320

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This is the Practice of the Practice podcast with Joe Sanok – Session Number 320.

INTRODUCTION

[JOE]
I’m Joe Sanok, your host, and welcome to the Practice of the Practice podcast. I am here in Practice of the Practice World Headquarters in the Radio Center 2 Building in beautiful downtown Traverse City. The sky is blue. The air is warm and so is the water. This is why we put up with winter here in Norther Michigan. So, we have amazing summertime. It’s just so awesome.
I hope your world is going well too. And, that you’re having a fun time with your friends and your family, and you’re doing things other than just working in your practice. You know, I often times talk about this especially in relation to our Next Level Mastermind and Slow Down School, and things that we aim at people that are 6 or 7-figure practices.
That’s really… You get your practice going. But then, you also have to go after those big ideas beyond your practice that we all have skillsets and ideas with the world and to make it a better place. Oftentimes, that’s not just in your community. Oftentimes, it’s on a national or international level. And then, also finding that time to slow down, to have a lifestyle that matters, to meet up with your friends and family, and in that community, and time alone, to go after your own hobbies. Like recently, I started taking up painting again. I love painting so maybe I’ll put some pictures of my “artistic works” unto the Instagram. We’ll see.
To be able to have that freedom to go after big ideas and to slow down, and to help change people’s lives through your practice and through your ideas, is really important to me. I was just talking to a friend recently. And, he said, “You know, Slow Down School really is like so aligned with you.” And, as a conference, to be able to slow down and then to speed up because of our inside is slowing down and have that balance. It’s really important to me.
They actually have these things where you kind of put letters on them on the wall. You may have seen them on Etsy or home stores, TNX, things like that. It kind of has those marquee type letters. And, it’s in my office. I’m looking at it right now. It’s black and it has this horizontal line and has kind of a grey wood outside and then bright white letters. I’ll change the out. But, in my office, it says “Breathe. Sprint. Kill it. Relax. Repeat.” And, so I thought what for me would I love to see when I walk into my office? Because when I’m in here, I’m sprinting and killing it.
Today I batch recorded 3-4 podcast episodes, got it into Trello for Sam to work on. So that, all the way through August like it’s set to go. So, I’m killing it. But, tonight when I get home, I have a 3-year-old and a 7-year-old. They could care less about podcast. They have tried to get my 7-year-old Lucia to do a podcast with me. I thought it would be fun to just like explore different things. She wants nothing to do with it. Maybe someday, who knows? But, I know those two little girls are going to want to play, and jump, and wrestle, and go outside. They’re going to want their daddy’s attention.
To me, that’s just important as what I’m doing for you and this audience that keeps growing, that we need to have that realization time. So, I really couldn’t have level up though without podcasting. And, that’s why I’m so excited about my guest today because Darrell Darnell is talking all his own story of podcasting, and then also some of the behind-the-scenes of starting a podcast.
Even just being on somebody else’s podcast is something that can really help you launch into a new level. And so, even if you think, “You know, I’ve never really thought about a podcast. That’s not my drive. That’s not jam. I want you to really pay attention, though, and think about what could you share with the world that you’re doing every day in your counselling sessions that maybe you should be a guess on a bunch of people’s podcasts, to spread the love with the world? So, without any further ado, I give you Darrell Darnell.
Well, today on the Practice of the Practice podcast, we have Darrell Darnell. He’s the owner of Pro Podcast Solutions and he began podcasting in 2008. In 2013, it became clear that he needed to part ways and leave the corporate job he’d held for 18 years. Darrell took the big leap to become an entrepreneur and create Pro Podcast Solutions. Welcome to the Practice of the Practice podcast!
[DARRELL]
Thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here.
[JOE]
Yeah, yeah. I always love having people that are outside of kind of the counselling and private practice space just because so often we don’t think big outside just the way that we do it. And so, I love having fellow podcast to be in the show. So, tell me a little bit about how you got into podcasting?

HOW DARRELL GOT INTO PODCASTING

[DARRELL]
Oh, well. Let’s see. That journey began on September 22nd, 2004. There was a flight from Sydney, Australia to Los Angeles, California. Unfortunately, the plain didn’t make it. It crashed on a weird island in the middle of the Pacific and 42 people survived. And, it was this TV show called Lost.
[JOE]
As you were saying that, I know where this is going.
[DARRELL]
Yeah, I mean, my wife and I weren’t really huge TV watchers up to that point, which honestly, were still not. But, there’s something about like those commercials that leading up to “Oh, that’s interesting.” And so, we watched it. And, it blew us away. It became just really enamoured with this TV show Lost. So, I would go online to message boards, and forums, and group chats, anything I could, and at work, anybody I could talk to about this show, trying to figure out what was going on. It’s just what we enjoyed about the show and all that.
It was in season 2 when one of these chatrooms, somebody said, “You know, there are podcasts about Lost.” And so, I headed over to iTunes and I found a few podcasts. One, for me, really that I latched on to, it was the Weekly Lost podcast with Cliff and Stephanie Ravenscraft. I started calling in their show. I say this because Cliff and I have a great relationship now. And, he’s been a mentor in a lot of ways. But, that podcast was Cliff and Stephanie. I want them credits so, but I would call in and play my feedback They would do this live after show podcast. And, I became a part of their community.
Lost is how I discovered J.J. Abrams. Today, J.J. Abrams is a household name when he started the Star Trek and Star Wars, and all of the stuff. But, at the time, unless you knew Alias and maybe Felicity, you didn’t really know who J.J. was. And so, Lost was my gateway drug to J.J. Abrams. And, his next show is a show called Fringe and that premiered in 2008. And, I was saw the pilot or the trailer for that show, I loved it. My buddy at work is like, “Hey, we should start a podcast on Fringe.” And, so we did it.
There were 4 of us initially that did this podcast called the Fringe podcast. But, it all started because of our love for Lost, and talking about Lost, and listening to Lost podcast.
[JOE]
Wow, it’s so fun how the things that you do just for fun can turn into what you are making a business around. So, when you launched that podcast, how long did that go, and did you launch many other podcasts?

LAUNCHING THE PODCAST

[DARRELL]
Oh, that sucking question, okay. So, yeah, we launched the Fringe podcast very beginning of July or end of July, beginning of August of 2008. And, we ran that podcast the entire duration of that show. And, the show ended in January of 2013. That’s kind of the bummer about doing podcasts about TV. It’s when the show gets cancelled, you get cancelled too. And so, that’s kind of a bummer.
[JOE]
How did you monetize that podcast back then?
[DARRELL]
Well, monetization’s for our podcast network has never been a high priority. We did try to monetize it, at least try to pay the bills. We invited people to support us via PayPal, donation link, or we had some merch, black t-shirts, and coffee mugs and stuff that we created. People could buy out of our café pre-store. What else did we do? I think those were the main things we did.
We started talking about wanting to go to Comic Con I think in 2010. We’ve never done the San Diego Comic Con and Fringe was really big there. We were trying to go but we needed to raise money in able to do that. We actually had a corporate sponsor to come onboard. And, it was Global Cash Card. One of the marketing guys was a big listener of our show. We didn’t realize it until that point. He said, “Hey, do you guys want to Comic Con? I’m going to make that happen.”
He almost single-handedly paid for our ways to get to Comic Con and they continued to support us financially for a season and a half of our podcast. So, that was kind of an unexpected thing.
[JOE]
Is that one of the first times that you really realize like “Woah, look at the reach of this thing.” Because I know I’ve had with the podcast moments like that where someone reaches out and said, “We’d love to be a sponsor” or “I want to do consulting.” The first person that said, “I listen to your podcast and I want to work with you.” It was one of those moments that you’re like “Holy cow, I didn’t anticipate this kind of thing happening.”
[DARRELL]
Totally, yeah, the consulting thing, I mean when we started out, if people go back and listen to the season 1 of Fringe podcast, you’re going to hear some really crappy audio. We had almost no money. We bought a couple of things but most of our equipment, I bought from the garage of a buddy of mine. It was a garage sale. So, I was like, “Hey, you’re an audio. You used to be in a band. You got anything left?” “Oh, I got this box of junk. You can take it for a hundred bucks.” And, I did. I mean, it was just, you know, I got as buy. But, we saw it terrible. We didn’t know what we were doing.
I was the technical guy trying to figure it all out. We just kept one…identified one thing that sucked about our setup and fixed that and find the next weakest link and fix that. And so, before too long, yeah, people started coming to us. “Hey, you guys sound really good now like your content was always good. But, now, your audio sounds good too. And, I wanted to start a podcast. You inspired me.” Or, maybe it wasn’t us who inspired them. But, they wanted to start a podcast. Yeah, we started asking, coming, asking for that.
I didn’t ever really see that like I never thought I would make a living in the podcasting space. I certainly don’t ever envision people because I went to Cliff. Cliff is like my mentor. He was the guy when I was going to start a podcast. “Hey, Cliff. I know that you’re the podcast staunch man. Can you help me?” And so, I didn’t expect people to go to me. Maybe they could go to Cliff. Why would they go to me? But, I have that connection with people, and, the relationship that I built through the podcast, and so, people would come to me. That was certainly unexpected.
[JOE]
I think you hit on an important point where a lot of people won’t do something until they feel like it’s perfect, or we’ve really got our systems down, or our user experience is ready to go. But, you guys, started with a box of junk from your friend’s garage and you just started. What did you learn through that process of kind of iterating and starting when things aren’t perfect versus if you have waited until you have perfect sound?

WAITING VERSUS THE HAVING THE PERFECT SOUND

[DARRELL]
Yeah. Keeping in mind that we were a fan podcast dedicated to a sci-fi show, when we first launch our podcast, there was a particular website. It was a blog dedicated to the TV show. And, they were featuring another Fringe podcast. And, this particular podcast, it wasn’t their first time doing a podcast. We were branded to the podcasting space. And so, they were featuring this other podcast. And, they have decided to make it the official podcast of their blog which is fine. They certainly have the right to do that.
I reached out to them and say, “Hey, we’re a Fringe podcast too. Would you mind featuring us?” And, he kind of made a snarky comment and said, “Never heard of you guys. Your kind of like a tree falls in the forest and there’s no one there to hear it” which I don’t know. It was just an unnecessary snarky comment and kind of rubbed me the wrong way like we didn’t count because he, personally, have never heard of us before. And, but, I didn’t let that stop me from still trying to continue the best that we could. And, we reached out even though our audio sucked.
To be honest, I didn’t know how badly our audio sucked until I realized how good we could be, how good we could sound. But, at the time, I thought we were pretty decent. But, we reached out to one of the actresses in the show and asked her if we could interview her on our podcast. Much to my shock, she said yes. So, she came on our podcast. It was via telephone. And, it was, this was 2008, I don’t even know if iPhone existed yet.
Certainly, bringing in calls to, you know, audio equipment was not worth to do today unless you have like an audio or phone bridge to bring in which was really expensive. I even tried to rip one locally. I couldn’t get one. We did the best we could. We did a lot of testing. And sure enough, when the phone call came in, I don’t know what happened. It was terrible. It was so terrible that I was literally at the podcast and conference about 4 years ago and audio expert from the stage, not knowing who I was or that I was in the audience, started to give an example of a podcast he used to listen to where this great podcast and snag this interview with an actress, and the audio was atrocious.
I hit him up later and I was like, “You were talking about me.” He was like, “He wasn’t.” “Let me tell you this.” “Oh, my gosh. I was talking about you.” So, the point why I’m telling you the story is as bad as that audio was, the interview still was the turning point in our podcast. It gave us credibility that we didn’t have before. The audience members out there flocked to our podcast because we got this exclusive interview with one of the series’ regular actresses. That blog that have previously said that we were like a tree falling in the forest, not knowing who we were, suddenly said “Oh, we’ve loved the feature on our blog.”
From that day forward, we were regularly featured on their blog. And, it really opened up the doors to get us into places that we know we couldn’t have otherwise gotten. By the time that it was all said and done, we were seating in conference calls each week, most weeks with the team from Fox. We got to interview Leonard Nimoy. We got to be in a conference call with J.J. Abrams. And, all these things opened. We got to go to San Diego Comic Con multiple times and interview the cast in person. So, all of that kind of… you know, the tipping domino for that started when we landed first interview.
Again, our audio sucked but the content was there, and we got the guts to get out there and burn souls out there. So, yeah.
[JOE]
Such great points. I mean so often people are just in their head so much. I know a lot of our audience has Masters or Doctorate degrees. So, they’ve done these a thesis or dissertation and they worked on it for years. And, then they turn it in. The board either accepts it or rejects it. So, they’re in that mindset of you got to polish it. You get one shot. But, the reality of business is, you know, moving forward fast really is what, you know, helps you to be successful. You can learn and change as you go. Now, how do you make that transition from being a fan podcast so then to serving a broader audience through consulting or teaching people how to podcast?

SERVING A BROADER AUDIENCE

[DARRELL]
That was a weird journey. When I first started podcasting, I was perfectly content at my day job. I worked for a regional bookstore chain that’s based in Oklahoma City where I lived. And, I’ve been with that company that I said in the intro for almost 19 years, not when I first started podcasting but when I left them. That’s how long I was with them. But, overtime I just fell in love with podcasting. It was all I could think about, all I wanted to do. And, at the same time, things at the job were shifting. Its leadership changes and just some things were changing. And, I knew that my time there was not long, and I didn’t want to be there anymore. That’s my attitude stunk, and it was for both myself and the company. There need to be a parting of ways.
[JOE]
That time were you at Comic Con doing these interviews, was that podcast really had taken off?
[DARRELL]
Oh yeah.
[JOE]
Were you like interviewing J.J. Abrams and then you go back to your day job, and that’s like you’re just Darrell?
[DARRELL]
Yeah. Yeah.
[JOE]
I’ve been there when things are to take off with Practice of the Practice. And, to have this thing that’s kind of magnet that’s drawing you towards it. But then, the practicality of “Well, should I stay at this day job?”, what was the turning point for you to decided to leave that day job?
[DARRELL]
Well, I mean, the turning point when I knew that I had to leave was I was on vacation. I didn’t go anywhere. It was more of a staycation. At that particular day, I was out in the kayak with my pastor. We were just kind of at the Oklahoma River that runs through downtown Oklahoma River is one of the premier boating, kayaking, and rowing facilities in the country. So, we were out there just enjoying some kayaks.
When we got back to the dock, I had a text from my assistant that said, “I didn’t realize that the marketing department was taking over blah blah blah.” And, I’m like I didn’t realize that either. And, she said, “Well, I just got word that that’s happening.” So, you know, the timing of I’m out of the office, one of the departments decides to go in corporate games.
When I got back to the office and started having some meetings with the CEO, and the marketing guy, and the President, it became clear that there have been some workings behind my back and some lies being said. You know, I won’t go into but that was the turning point. That was the day that I knew that this was no longer a company that I wanted to be with anymore.
It was clear that there was something just not right there. But, that still took me like 2 years from that point to figure out how. At first, I was like, “Do I want to build a website for people?” because I enjoy building my website for podcastsolutions.com. I built goldenspiralmedia.com. So, I had… and I enjoyed doing those things. And so, I first tried to do that for people but didn’t realize I don’t like doing it for other people. It took me longer than it should have realize it. People were already coming.
Nobody is coming to me asking me to build their website. People were totally asking me for advice on podcasting. I don’t know why that took me so long to figure that that was really my natural next step. But, eventually, I made that connection and started figuring out my exit strategy around the, you know, initially the side of podcast consulting.
[JOE]
Yeah. So, when you were kind of building that runway to take off and exit from your corporate job, what were some of the bullet points of things you worked on during that time that helped you launch?

EXIT FROM CORPORATE JOB

[DARRELL]
Well, it all at least comes back to relationships. I go back to Cliff Ravenscraft. My relationship with him, initially, was just I would call into his podcast. And, we developed a very good relationship. We were on a first name basis. We knew who each other was. And then, when we launched, I was the director of our E-commerce Operations at the bookstore. And, I was responsible, initially, for developing our e-commerce platform, our e-commerce operations, fulfilment strategies, online marketing, and all this other stuff.
When we launched our website, people knew us in the state where we had a physical presence, but no one knew us in New Jersey for example. So, I partnered with Cliff. I reached out to him. “Hey, can we do advertising on one of your podcasts because you have a worldwide network. And, we did. We began running ads on his Family from the Heart podcast. So, that changed our relationship to, now, we have a business partnership together. And, we worked in a completely different dynamic that way. So, fast forward when I came time for me to leave, he knew my skills as a podcast. He knew my technical skills. He knew my business skills. And so, he reached out to me and said, “I’ve got a friend who’s looking to do a podcast network on TV shows and he’s looking for hosts.”
I reached out to that guy. His name was Stewart. And, I said, “I’d love to be a host.” As I see it, you also need help with audio production of all these episodes. He said, “Yeah, I do.” I said here are my qualifications for that. And, I got that job. That was my first paid client. It all happened because of relationship with Cliff. I can’t understate the importance of having that relationship. And so, everything in life comes back to relationships.
[JOE]
Yeah, and I think that when you surround yourself by people that are ahead of you, that are doing interesting work, just inspires you to do it more, because I think there’s a lot of people that they might stay at their day job even if they hate it. But, there’s that “security” of it. But, when you start to surround yourself with people like Cliff and you started dreaming what you could make, but also having a long enough runway that you’re not just burning the ship and then saying I hope this works, I mean you have a family to take care of.
I don’t know what your life situation was at that point. But, it’s like you have a runway. You’re building the infrastructure. You were kind of launching things so that when you actually left that job, it would be more successful that if you just kind of burn the ship.
[DARRELL]
Yeah. No question. And, I think that the important lessons I learned through that is not being afraid to ask. There’s been 3 or 4 times since, that was the first instance where, you know, Stewart was looking for a person to host this podcast, multiple people to host multiple podcast. I would have been one of many. I was. I did. I hosted a couple of podcasts on the network. But, I identified another need he had that I wasn’t sure if he has filled it yet. And, I took leap and stepped out to ask if he did need help at the time, the editing of all these episodes.
He said yes because I was qualified because it was a win-win. In other words, I didn’t just go to somebody. You’ve seen this happen. I accept a LinkedIn request yesterday. And, 5 minutes later, I got a message from the guy trying to sell me on his surface. There’s no relationship formed. He’s not told me anything about him. He’s not trying to find out about what my needs are. He simply spammed me with his… what’s his answer? His answer is no.
On the other hand, the situation with Stewart, I took time to learn about what Stewart is. I researched his background. I found out if he even had an audio production background because if he did, I seemed I would have assumed he’s doing it himself. I took time to learn about him while he was going with his new venture. What needs he might have? And then, I approached him to say, “Here’s my skillset. I think you have this need. Can I use my skillset to meet that need? Is that valid need?
It turned out it was a win-win. Yes, he did need that. And, yes, I did have the qualifications. He vetted me and made sure that I indeed have the skillset he was looking for. So, when you approach someone with a win-win, then, the answer is sometimes going to be yes. That was a huge lesson for me was taking the time to learn about those people that you’re going to go business with or you desire to go on business with. Find out you can serve them and then approach them from that angle. It’s always worked, again because of relationships.
[JOE]
Such a great point. I’d love to shift gears a little bit. For those who are listening and maybe are interested in dipping their toes into podcasting or they know they want to launch a podcast, I’d love to hear, maybe, what are five things or so that they need to consider or there are some of the steps along the way? Just walk us through maybe the process of launching a podcast, getting a podcast going. Obviously, it’s not going to be authoritative. There’s so much that goes into it, knowing from kind of being a podcaster. But, what are things that people should consider or they could help them in the beginning phases of starting a podcast?

BEGINNING PHASES OF STARTING A PODCAST

[DARRELL]
Well, as I mentioned, when I started podcasting back in 2008, the technology was much different. Back no those days, you had to have a mixer and all these microphones and cables going everywhere. There was certainly a fair amount of tech savvy and technology that you needed to have in order to do everything.
Nowadays, fortunately, that’s not the case. I mean, you can get a microphone that plugs directly into your computer via USB. You can get a very small, you know, USB interface. Your microphone plugs into that and then that plugs into your computer. And, you can record via software that is on your computer. So, the barrier to entry is not nearly as complicated as it once was. And so, I say that just to say a lot of folks make mistake of not taking the time to get the proper equipment to sound good. You know content is best. You know, I mentioned that interview with the actress. Our audio quality was bad but the content was great and that’s what got people to listen. But, I would say in today’s world, there’s no need to make that sacrifice on audio quality.
Aside from that, the other mistake is just going out there and talking into a microphone without knowing what you’re going to talk about or being prepared. Knowing what your competition is out there so that you can be different in making sure that your voice is being heard and you’re not copycatting someone else. You know we’ve all seen those, Entrepreneurs on Fire-wanna-be clones, you know. Don’t do that.
[JOE]
When I get on an interview with someone like the same questions as J.L.D., he asked me those questions when I was on his show! That was ridiculous. You don’t need a lightning…
[DARRELL]
That’s right. Yeah. Don’t try to be like somebody else because that’s a turn off. I mean people are not going to want to hear that. They want to hear J.L.D. do that. They don’t want to hear… Because that’s him, he originated that. You got to find your own voice and make sure you’ve thought through it before you hit that record button.
[JOE]
Yeah. So, it sounds like having good equipment that, you know, plugs in some decent mics, making sure that, you know, thinking what you’re saying on the podcast, so you have the good content, what’s going to make you different from the rest of the field? What are other things that can kind of get going with the podcast? You know, they do some interviews. What are things to consider in regard to making their sound sound good, or maybe even to have that content side?
[DARRELL]
Well, yeah, I mean making sure to plan ahead, on the content side, when I see podcasters struggling, it’s typically because it’s almost ready to fire aim. They’re so excited that maybe they have shown the objects in the room. I do. I have to constantly pull back myself from showing objects in the room. Just taking the time to think about and planning out, you know, I was listening to your most recent episode.
You were talking about a five-episode batch. That’s really smart to do it that way where you get a chance to do things in a grouping, to think about how they fit together cohesively. So, you can really plan your content and in doing so, you’re going to be giving your audience something that’s more actionable, something more cohesive, something that’s more understandable, something that they can really take more value out of. And, when those things are happening, your audience is going to… because you’re getting value out of it. They’re the ones who’re going to do the marketing for you. There’s nothing better than word of mouth marketing.
If you can really make sure you’re taking the time, slow down, prepare your content, your message, your action, your plan of…, your course, you know, not just what I am doing this week. What I am doing connects quarter. And, then, develop your strategy around that. Your audience will notice. They’ll appreciate it. They’ll help spread the word.
[JOE]
Well, I found that if I do a series even if it’s a bunch of interviews I did it different times. If I do them together, “Alright, the next 4 weeks we’re going to be covering marketing.” First, we’re going to be talking about podcasting with Darrell. Then, next, we’re going to be talking about e-courses.
Even if the original interviews were meant to be a series, it kind of brings them all together. And then, my call to action for jumping on the email list or purchasing a product, or whatever the thing is, it’s a lot easier because I got these 4 episodes in a row that are all around marketing. And so, I put together this worksheet for you to download or whatever it is. For me, then, I can get that flow of doing the intros and outros where I can say, “Alright, next time we’ve got Darrell coming on and he’s going to be talking about podcasting.” We have a quick clip from him. There’s just more of that cohesiveness where it feels like it’s all going together even if the original interviews weren’t.
[DARRELL]
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
[JOE]
So, what about people that are more advanced? Some of our listeners have podcasts already. They’re growing. They’re consulting. They got this side ideas outside of their counseling practice or their private practice. What are some more advanced things when you’re getting some downloads and you have some tractions?

FOR PODCASTERS

[DARRELL]
Well, one of the things that I love, one of the people that I love is Amy Porterfield.
[JOE]
Oh yeah. She’s awesome.
[DARRELL]
She’s so wonderful and she’s a client of ours and we love working with her and her team. But, we don’t take a lot of credits. We don’t take any credits for her success. She was well-established and highly successful before we ever have the opportunity to work with her. But, if you check out Amy’s podcast, there’s no one better at calls to action than she has. And, it’s because she takes the time to get it right.
It’s not something that you necessarily do on day one. You don’t get the basic first. Figure out your rhythm. Figure out how you’re going to record, each interviewing skills down and all those steps. So, you know, like I said when we started podcasting, we identified our weakest link and improve that. And then, identify the weakest link at that point and then improve that.
That’s what I’m kind of getting at here. We get the basics down first. But then, look at what Amy does with her calls to action. Every single episode, she has a great call to action that lead you back to her website, gets you an email address, put you into her funnel. She will give you a resource. And, this is not some sort of cheap resource. This is really actionable, valuable resource. It’s typically a PDF. But, there’s value in that. And then, she gets you into her email system. But, let’s be honest.
We want to be in her email system. That’s very valuable. She’s not just spamming people or checking your email address without giving you value for it. She appreciates the value of your email address. And then, she uses that email address to monetize.
I mean that’s where she makes her money is off of her email address, and the courses, and the things that she provides for sale through that. But, it all starts with that call to action. And so, again, when I repeat again, worry about the basics first. But, once you get into that rhythm of figuring out how you’re going to record each week, how you’re going to structure your podcast, making sure you’ve got all that down, be thinking about how you’re going to… how you can create that value piece to each episode.
It takes work to create those PDFs. It takes time. It takes thought to figure out what those actions are going to be and making sure that they are valuable enough for someone to give over their email address for that. And so, those don’t come easy. It’s not easy but it’s valuable and worth it. So, that’s how she builds her empire if you will. There’s no one better than Amy.
[JOE]
I love how organized she is and how she presents her content. Like, clearly, she’s thought through it. I’m not sure if she has notes in front of her or how she organizes it. But, clearly, she’s thought through what she wants to say and it’s very intentional, not wasting my time as a listener. There’s one about webinars. I forgot how she titled it, but it was basically like How to Sell from a Webinar. And, the way she organized that podcast episode. We’ll link to that in the show notes.
I listened through that probably 3 or 4 times and took so many notes. I mean, sure, she has a download for it. Like, I want to have it be in my own words of how I could apply it. It’s just step-by-step. It took me through how you use webinars in a way that gives awesome content to people, doesn’t feel sales-y. But then, still worth your time at the end of it.
[DARRELL]
Yup. That’s exactly right.
[JOE]
Well, Darrell, one of the last questions I ask my guests is if every private practice owner in the world were listening right now, what would you want them to know?

MESSAGE TO LISTENERS

[DARRELL]
Well, I would want them to know because we’re talking about podcasting today. I would want them to know that they should start a podcast. It should not be the first thing that they do. A podcast works best when it is an addendum to what you are already doing. This is like what I mentioned with Amy. Their podcast isn’t their primary revenue generator.
She has all these other things that she’s doing. And then, the podcast is a great way for her to educate people, to gain trust with people, to gain respect with people, to gain favor with people, and to get people to her email address, right? So, that’s where a podcast can really add value to what you’re already doing. So, I would say to your audience. If you’ve got those down, if you’ve got your funnels in place, if you’ve got your website established, if you’ve got those things already, then, why not start a podcast?
There’s no better thing out there to be able to really connect with people. Everything that I’ve hopefully said today has been in the idea that community is a huge part of, and relationship is a huge part of podcasting. You know, I mentioned with my relationship with Cliff. It all started because of his podcast and the community that he built around that.
My success as a podcaster came because of the community and the relationships that we built through our podcast to the point that people are started coming to me even if I didn’t offer services. And so, if you got those things established, a podcast is a great way to take your practice to the next level, to help to educate and inform the public, and those who are trying to blaze that trail behind you to have their own practice maybe. And so, there’s nothing better than a podcast to really help do that.
[JOE]
Darrell, I wish there’s a way for me to verbally underline, bold, highlight what you just said because I totally agree that the people… There are so many skills in this community and everybody in this community has a podcast, I think it would genuinely change the world better. And also, revenue streams help people connect with their ideal clients. So, thank you so much for ending that note because I could echo it loud enough for you. So, if people want to connect with you, connect with your company, what’s the best way for them to read more about what you’re doing?
[DARRELL]
Well, yeah, propodcastsolutions.com is our website. Now, if folks want to head over to propodcastsolutions.com/practice then on that page, we’ve got a place where you can book a… recall the chat with me about what we do. We help people get started with podcasting or to improve their podcasting.
We do the audio editing. We write the show notes, anything that a podcaster needs back in support, we’ve got you. And, if you want to learn more about podcasting or how we can help you with that, then, there’s a link on that website which is again propodcastsolutions.com/practice. But, we also got some free stuff there like there are some video resources that can help you pick out the right microphone and I talked about the importance of audio quality. I’ve got a video on 5 Pitfalls that an Early Podcaster Should Avoid. So, go check them out. Those are free. No email address required or anything like that. Again, propodcastsolutions.com/practice.
[JOE]
Awesome. Well, Darrell, thank you so much for being on the Practice of the Practice podcast.
[DARRELL]
My pleasure. And, it’s really been a lot of fun chatting with you today. Thank you for having me.
[JOE]
Absolutely. Talk to you soon.
[DARRELL]
Alright.
[JOE]
Thanks for tuning in this week. It has been an exciting week. Go to do something with podcasting. Try to do get on a podcast. Listen to a new podcast. Start a podcast. There are so many things that you can do. Next week, we have Meighan O’Toole who’s going to be here. And, I’m so excited. She’s a Digital Marketing Specialist. And, we’re going to have 3 weeks of fierce females that are in the business growth space. And, I’m super excited. So, let’s hear a clip from that interview.
[MEIGHAN]
A couple of things to really narrow on that are very common, people make sort of emotional decisions around marketing that really hurt them. So, I try to tell people to figure out the data like really lean on data. And, also to… one of the things that I’ve also seen is people think that there are businesses are really special, which absolutely is. Your businesses are totally special. But, for the most part, marketing can be done for everybody.
[JOE]
Thanks for letting me into your ears and into your brain. Don’t forget that Therapy Notes is our sponsor. They’re the best Electronic Medical Records out there. Use code joe18 to get 2 months totally for free. Check them out. We’re going to make things so much easier for you. Thanks for letting me into your ears and into your brain. Talk to you soon.

[This podcast is designed to provide accurate and intuitive information in regard to the subject matter covered. It’s given to the understanding that neither the host, the publisher, the guests are rendering legal, accounting, clinic, or other professional information. If you need a professional, you should find one. And, thanks to the band Silence is Sexy. We love your intro music!]