Make Money from a Podcast: Are You Ready?

podcast. But we actually need to take a step back and ask the question, are you ready to monetize your show? That's what we're going to talk about today. So let's get right to it. Welcome to the Proffitt Podcast where we teach entrepreneurs how to start launch and market their podcast. I'm your host, Krystal, Proffitt, and I'm so excited that you're here. Thanks for hanging out

with me today. Because if you've been trying to figure out the world of podcasting, think of this show as the time saving shortcut you've been looking for. So let's get right to it, shall we?

it? Oh, it just makes me cringe even just saying it because I'm like, No, no, no, no, no, that is not the only way. Yes, it is one of the ways to monetize your podcast. But it's not the only way. And so before we can even get to that right before we can even talk about well, what are the ways that you can monetize your show, we really do have to ask the question that I said in the beginning, and that is, are you ready to

monetize? Because there are really three different aspects of how to know if you're ready to monetize your show. Because at the end of the day, what I'm trying to help you avoid is a bunch of complicated messes that can come from monetizing your show, without really being ready, right? And you're like, well, Krystal, what do you mean, what? Why don't have to be ready, all I'm doing is collecting checks, right? I am just gonna sit back and watch my bank account get fat, because that's

what I want to do. Well, yeah, that'd be fantastic. If that were the case, but that is not the case. Okay, like it is still work to put in some of the things that we're going to talk about today into practice.

way of life, right? Like maybe you're super busy with 1000 other things and you're like, Well, my podcast is kind of the side thing that I'm doing. And maybe in the future, I will eventually turn it into more like a podcast business and be able to monetize it that way. But I'm gonna tell you right now, if the question is, is this podcast, a hobby or business, and you say it's a hobby, it's going to be really hard to monetize your hobby. So let me give you another

example. If I were someone who knits I don't know why, like knitting, you know, like needle and thread, like those kinds of things, not needle and thread. What does that like crocheting? See, I don't even know what it is. This is a terrible example. But let's go back to puzzles. Okay, I did. We recently got back from our vacation of visiting family in West Texas and my mother in law loves doing puzzles, you know, like jigsaw puzzles, like 1000 piece

puzzles. And this is a hobby that she has, and she's like, I'm retired. I can do tons of puzzles all the time, and it's something she really enjoys. It's a hobby for her. She's not trying to monetize this. She's not saying, Oh, I'm going to set up a camera and have people watch me on youtube while I do this jigsaw puzzle, she's like, no, it's something I do, to relax, I put on HGTV in the background, and I just enjoy doing these puzzles. It's

relaxing for me. And I gotta admit, this is something I really enjoy doing too. Like I love doing ticks on puzzles, like fun fact about me. But it's something that is a hobby, that is a very clear definition of a hobby, and not a business, and she has no desire to ever make it a business. So if that's the way you feel about your podcast, you're like, this is just a love project. This is something I'm just doing to, you know, be my

creative outlet. It's something that I just have a lot of extra time, and I just want to share my message. It's awesome. There's nothing wrong with that. But that is a hobby. So I like by the end of this episode, today, I want you to have a very clear picture on whether your podcast is a hobby, or whether it is a business because if it is a hobby, it's going to be very hard to monetize. It just is because you have a different mentality, you will say, Well, if it doesn't work, it's okay.

It's just a hobby. It's almost like you're giving yourself an out. If you don't ever get any traction with monetizing, or you're like I created something and offered it to my audience. But it didn't work. But that's okay. Because it's just a hobby. It gives you an out consistently over and over again, it's almost like it's an excuse for why your business, your podcast business is not working. So I want you to just make a clear distinction, draw that line in the sand. Is your

podcast a hobby? Or is it a business? Okay? And for those of you that said, my podcast is a business or I want it to be a business, I want to make money with my podcast. Well, then you have to ask yourself the second question, right. The first one was the first topic we had talked about was mindset.

own program services. And you're like, ah, I think one day in the future, I want to have a digital course I want to have other aspects of my business, but I don't have it right now. But I am ready to monetize, I am like, I want to start from the very beginning, generating revenue, then affiliate marketing is definitely one of the best places to get

started. And actually, I want to know, like, I want you to tag me on social media or ask in our Facebook group, like Do you want more content about promoting affiliate campaigns on a podcast because this is something I've been thinking a lot about, I actually am in like, deep in the trenches on really planning and creating my affiliate campaigns that

are coming up. We actually have one in July that we're going to be promoting B school with Marie Forleo and digital course Academy with Amy Porterfield in September. So these are things that I am actively doing right now. And I want to know if you want to see kind of behind the scenes of these affiliate campaigns, So reach out in the Facebook group and tell me if you're not part of our Facebook group, it's going to be

in the show notes. So KrystalProffitt.com/e isode269 is where you're oing to find how to conn ct with us in the Facebo k group. But let's go bac to affiliate campai ns. So there are so man processes and pr cedures in place for mon tizing my podcast with ffiliate campaigns now wo 't get into all of the etails. Because you all f you've been around here you know that I love a sauna. Like my Asana pr ject plans for these ffiliate campaigns. Like hey're legit amazing. J st I'm gonna toot my ow

horn for a second. Bu it's because I have s ent hours and hours nd hours deciding what's mportant and what's not i portant. But when it come down to it, affiliate ca paigns are all about ho does this program rel

te to my audience. Why? B cause the school here' a great example if you'r not familiar with wh t that is, this is a pr gram that is for some ne that wants to have an online business like ho to set it up how to get going and that relates to sell Many people that listen to this podcast f you want to have a b siness develop out of y ur podcast, B schoo is a great program fo you, our digital cour

e Academy. This is another program that I k ow a lot of you are like, I think I could create a digital course or I thin that I could use the co tent from my podcast hat I'm already talking bout to my audience and o deeper on this subject. So creating a digit l course may be something up your alley. And I kno it's not going to be or everyone. But at the end of the day, I lo k at my audience, and I ee who they are, right?

I know so much about yo , because you enga e with me on social med a, you reply back to th emails that I send ever single Friday. And I kn w that these types of p ograms are a good fit f r the Proffitt Podcast audience, y'all. I'm not trying to sell y u a mattress. reason why I bring a mattress s is because I always hear like mattress ad on, like branded pod asts that are really, really big. And I think why I don't I don't ne d a mattress. Why? W y are they they're sti l trying to sell me a mat

ress. I've listened to this podcast for a ye r and a half, I still do 't need a mattress. So i 's not something that's necessarily alig ed with what my audience wants. Does that make s nse? I hope you're nodd ng along however, yes, li e I get it. We're on the same page here. But l t's go back to systems eal fast. So systems simply means and where t's going to kind of segue into the third t ing that we need to talk bout. But systems at t e end of the day means be

ng organized. If yo 're not organized with y ur podcast right no , you're not going to be ny better once you tart monetizing, and dding more things to y ur plate. So start reating systems for your content calendar for the guests that you're goin to have on your show, li e, what does that look l ke? Like just start writi g things down? And someth ng that I learned in my ntrepreneur jou ney is I need those stand rd operating proced

res. I know, they sound super boring, they sou d like something that's like, Wait, what? No, o, I don't. I'm not a that level. I know, i 's my, my podcast isn't a hobby, but it's a busin ss. But I just know, tha 's that just that's not e, I don't want to be that organized. I don t want to be that rigid But at the end of the d y, if I find a company, love a company, I reall , really want to work wit a company that I k ow can really, really h

lp you. And I want to st rt promoting it on he podcast or I wan to talk about it on soci l media, or I want to hav a great campaign that pr motes something like k jabi kajabi is anothe promotion that w have going on in July 2021, where they have fantastic deal g ing on. And I know that t could work for someone

in this community. And a the end of the day, if I don't know how to talk about it, if I haven't planned it out, if I hav n't created a standa d operating proced re for how my affiliate campaigns work, t's gonna be a lot h rder. And I'll just be really honest, this is onna be clunky. It's not going to be a great proce s whenever you fir t get started, because you don't have a pro ess. Most of you tell me like you come to me a d you're like, I don't I ust kind of do my thing.

ecord my podcast and I pu it up. I don't have a l t of systems for how market. My show to my au ience. I just I thought y u just had to put it ou there. I thought publis ing the episode in my po cast host was like th t was it right? Like that s, that's where you stop? No, it's not. If you want to treat your po cast like a business, you have to commit to goi g beyond just publishing n episode. You've ot to figure out how t market your show, you g t to figure out how t get it in front of the

ight audience. And th se are things that we t lk about in Proffitt Podc sting. This is my digit l course. We talk bout ways to monetize we talk about how to fin the right audience. nd if you are just lik I have no idea what you re talking about Kr stal like when it com s to understanding ho your audience is find ng like go to KrystalPro fitt.com/cour e. And you're gonna ind more information abo t Proffitt Podc

sting. This is wh re I teach entrepreneurs ow to start laun h and market their p dcast, but at the end o the day systems will sav you systems will be s mething that is the f undation of the business f your podcast, right Because you probably com itted in the first question, is it a hobby o is it a business if it s a business, you need to have systems in place s stems to monetize syste s to make money systems t keep having more dif erent affiliate campai ns, or maybe it's your o

n programs. Maybe it's s mething I don't even kno like, I It's a way to monetize I'd never even hought of, but you need t start having systems in place. That's how yo know, you're ready to m netize.

need to ask yourself. If you're treating your podcast like a business, then you need to set it up properly, on the back end, so you don't have a financial mess, or maybe even a legal mess in the future. And I can just tell you how I've done this for myself So to properly This is number three, right? We're talking about the behind the scenes of setting up the business of your

podcast properly. What I did is I did set up an LLC for my business, which is Proffitt media, if you've heard me talk about Proffitt media, that is the umbrella of Proffitt Podcasting on my digital courses, like all the things that I do, that is under the umbrella of Proffitt media. And there's a few reasons why I did this one, I wanted to have the business separate from what my husband and I do.

And I wanted to have a bank account that was specifically for the business because I didn't want to be like, Oh, hey, by the way, I got a bunch of PayPal transactions in our personal account. But that doesn't really go towards our regular budget of groceries and buying gas. And like all those things, like we need to keep that separate now that, you know, I can tell you right now, I grew up with a dad who my dad had his own plumbing business for a long time. And he did everything in one

account. And I can tell you right now, it is stressful, it's a mess. And it's not something I ever want to deal with having your personal assets and your business assets. commingled that way. So I recommend this is again, it's not financial advice. It's not legal advice. But this is what I did, is having your business and your personal stuff,

separate. And so in order to have the LLC, or sorry, in order to have the bank account separate and have it say like, like my business card says Proffittmedia, the way I had to do that was setting up my own LLC, like I have an EIN number, like a tax id like all those things. It set up through Proffittmedia, because I wanted it to be separate. And maybe you're like, I don't have the money to do that. Or maybe it's really expensive in your

state. Well, these are the things you need to think about when you're saying, am I ready to monetize. Because if you don't have a separate bank account, if you don't have your LLC, maybe that's something you want to wait to monetize. Or, you know, wait, maybe you're not ready until you have those things. And maybe you need to save up a little money and invest in your business to make

that happen. But at the end of the day, if all of a sudden you're making like let's just let's just say for example, right? Let's say you did monetize, and one of your affiliate campaigns took off, maybe you made a ton of money, you got a windfall, like you get really lucky with one program, and you're like, Oh my gosh, like I just made $20,000 overnight, and it all goes into your personal account. And then all of a sudden, you're like, wait, I started making money through being a stream

yard affiliate. And then I started making money as a buzzsprout affiliate, and then I started making money here. And then now I can't keep separate my expenses and my income. Because I'm not sure exactly how much business money I have in my account. I want you to avoid all of that. So if you're gonna treat your podcast like a business, if you're gonna monetize, I recommend laying the foundation from the get go, it will make things so much easier. So so so much easier.

using my podcast. Then you got to think more seriously and commit to some of these other systems which is the second thing is setting up systems having processes and procedures in place so that you can move monetize. And then the third thing is we kind of talked about the formalities behind the scenes of having an LLC or setting up a business bank account, it really makes things so, so much

easier. So if you've been podcasting for a while, and you're like, you know what, I think that I'm serious about this, I want this to be a business then consider, like, looking into it, right? Like, what is it going to hurt if you start looking into what is the process in my state, or where I live, to set up an entity outside of my personal affairs, you know, like, my personal whatever, that is going to cover

me, right? It's gonna cover my butt at the end of the day, like, that's what my husband and I, we talked about, we're like, you know, what, we need a little protection if, what if something goes wrong with the business? What if I, you know, get sued by somebody, and all of a sudden, I'm like, Oh, my gosh, like, our house is at risk, or you know, our kids college, but like, they're going to take that like anything like that. Like, that scares the crap out of me. I'm a very risk

averse person. So I set up an LLC, and now everything is just run through the business. It doesn't go to my personal account for my payments, like any any money that I make, it goes through the business, because I committed a long time ago, that my podcast was going to be a business and not a hobby. Okay. I felt like we could keep talking about making money and all the things but I'm going to save

that for another day. But if you are curious about other ways to make money with a podcast, it's something we talk about in Proffitt Podcasting. So like I said, you can go to the show notes, you can. I mean, if it's something that you're like, I really want to get serious about monetizing about running my podcast in a way that I show up differently. I'm more serious about what I'm doing. I encourage you to go learn more and see if Proffitt Podcasting is right for you.

up. We all have to start somewhere.