Turning Passion into Profit in Business and Podcasting w/Roy Coughlan

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I really appreciate your support , thank you . This is Tools of the Podcast Trade , where you can learn about the tools and resources you can use to start and grow your podcast . Tune in this week as we talk about the help you need to remove the mystery from podcasting so you can become a successful podcast that can reach your audience where they are .

I guess today is Roy Collin . Thank you for coming and speaking to us today , Roy . I appreciate you .

Originally from Cork in Ireland and 16 years ago moved to a place called Wucin , poland , which is right in the center of Poland , used to be the second biggest city . He's now moved to the third .

And so I went to college , then construction , economics and management , then worked with a company for about nine years and so I did about 12 years working for two kind of big companies in Ireland construction companies and then kind of went to Poland and just being an entrepreneur since .

I was doing very well , I was paid very well because I was kind of getting a good salary but also a bonus on profits and I was good at what I'd done . So I was making good profits for the company . But I near kind of , I suppose , the first one .

I was like six or seven years and I set up a website company then with a guy and I was doing that and when they found out they didn't like that . So I was kind of pushed out the door because they could see that , yeah , I didn't want to be kind of staying there long term .

Like I was always kind of looking for kind of tax optimization and so one was in Barrett's for a company that I was doing , that I had a few companies in Ireland , company in England , a lot in Poland , and now I have Estonian as well as the E residency for that .

And the reason that I think that's a very good model is there's no cooperation tax and it's basically like if you're leaving money there because in Poland you're paying it each month , if you have profits and it's better not to be doing that , and then there's a double taxation agreement with Poland with a lot of countries .

So like a lot of times people think an accountant has your back . In my experience we're having a lot of accountants over the years in different parts of the world . They don't care .

I think they're getting kickbacks , to be honest with you , from the actual revenue , because anytime like , for example , one time I was doing the properties in Poland , but I had a company in Ireland for it and a Polish company as well , just for different things I was doing and I got a tax bill .

And when I was talking to the accountant I said can I do this , can I do this , can I ? So I had bought a book called Tax Magic and it was written by a guy from the revenue and they said yes , yes , yes , I ended up getting a tax rebate . Why an accountant doesn't come to you and give you that information ?

And I've seen that in all the different countries . And it's like when I talk to other people as well . There's obviously a few accountants . Have your back , but I think nobody will actually respect your company as much as yourself .

So I built houses , I built apartments , turkey apartments and different things in Poland and done a lot of like , renovations and things like that .

But what I found is I'm thinking long term that whatever happens because this world has gone a bit crazy if I need to move , so I've kind of stepped away from stuff that my businesses , I need to be here and everything , and I'm trying to get everything online .

So if I feel like going to Spain or like I went last year with my son to Estonia for a month , I was able to do a few things and just kind of work from there , and I think that kind of gives you a bit of safety as well , so you're not stuck in the location if you need to move .

Now can you tell us and I understand this is not tax , legal or no kind of advice , just your opinion which would you consider the best European country to start a business ?

But there's a lot of kind of like Facebook groups and everything where you can write or even on LinkedIn and say , look , I'm thinking of doing this . I'm just ask people . There's plenty of business people who have experienced that they're happy to share and go do this .

Don't do it Because I mean , like I've heard in the market , like Delaware and I've heard of different things because it acts optimization reasons . You know people are leaving California because they're paying so much to there . So it's just the case of pay attention to it . Don't just say I must pay X amount of tax .

You know just like the money is better in your pocket , so don't be given another way to them because they don't use it for the best things .

kind of it was never to be a business , it was kind of more to make change to humanity , to help people and do the right thing . And but then I thought , okay , you have to pay for Zoom , you have to pay for CalB , you have to pay for this , you have to pay for the platform . So I was like this is adding up .

So like that was one of the things that I was like okay , this isn't right . You're giving plenty of information , you're spending a lot of time researching a guest and then you're editing it and posting it and it's costing you money . So I'd like I kind of made a conscious decision I need to change this .

And then , like with regarding to the coaching , how I started the coaching is I was doing a lot of toastmasters and I was teaching people in that . I was doing workshops and just lots of stuff that loads of people started from it . So that was , that was good , I was happy . I was actually helping a lot of people get there .

But then I found those people reaching out to me that kind of knew me yeah , I wouldn't call them friends , I'd say acquaintance .

Yeah , oh , you're doing a part sometimes helping people like and they wouldn't even buy a cup of tea , kind of thing , like and you , it's a lot of time to take a portion from the start , like you can learn it online in an hour if need be , but it's not going to be good .

If you want to do this right , you need to understand the whole steps and because I mean , I've released over 1200 episodes with all my podcasts at this day , so I kind of know what I'm doing , learned the mistakes . I make sure that people don't do it . But it was like people weren't respecting my time .

So that's why I actually said I'm going to start coaching for this . And straight away , people reached and I said , yeah , I've got a free webinar if you want to go to that , but if you're interested . And it started working and I said , okay , this is good .

Everybody goes to the doctor to get free advice from the doctor . If they have a carpenter , they expect them to do the work for the carpenter and it's something I don't do . If I get someone to do , I want to pay them and if they want me to pay them , I make sure I buy them a drink or I buy them , take them for a meet or I do something .

I respect their actually and the reason that I use them is I know they're good but unfortunately there's a lot of people don't respect . So you have to just kind of , I think , respect ourselves that we don't get used for the skill set that we've got .

I'm like money who want to make money from a podcast ? This is my purpose . I told him and he refused to work with me because of that . And I discovered in the six years in sewing that you need money to run a podcast , no matter what your reason for starting it . Right .

to start and grow their podcast I suppose I kind of take you to a little journey from the start .

I would say that when you're doing something , have it , that people will remember it and that you've got the domain for . The next thing is the graphic .

A lot of people like when they're creating the graphic , looking at on a big screen and they're going to this looks actually very good and they forget that when it's in the itunes doors of the spot of a , it's a tiny little box and it's like Look at , see what it looks like , and then go through all the different ones and see what's , what's sticking out to

what colors , what not too much wording , because a lot of people do that . And I give an example of mistakes that I made , for example , with the polish one . I never thought that would be popular . I thought I was doing it more for me because I was trying to find the polish podcast to learn from myself , but they were only scripted . Are they running polish ?

And that's not how I learned . So I said , okay , I'm gonna create this . So I'm doing it with my ex wife and because we've got a good relationship together and I just took a picture From a tripod and a crappy graphic and it was like number one and a lot of things .

It was a hit of julingo , was a hit of bbc languages and a lot of different things and that's the screen shot that I've got with them . So then eventually I went to a professional pictures taking . I'm gonna get graphics .

So I would say from people at the start do a decent logo , don't wing it , and you can get people that will do it on five or not parking things like that . Not a massive prices . Are there's 99 designs and things like that , this , plenty of people that will do that , reasonable prices . But you know , treat it like a business . It's not . It's a slow burn .

It's not something that you just kind of go okay , I'm doing this and money will flowing . But it is possible because if , if you're doing your own coaching or your own products or stuff like that , make sure you let people know because they're listening to your podcast and a lot of people trying to do that the end .

Try to do it midway or at the start , so that People will be listening to and always , always ask people to give you advice . There is a review and I come in , I mean I look high , I can ask , I can see , because it depends where you're looking at from .

You see some countries , but I know that it was like over fifteen hundred five star reviews and a lot of the ones that I've got and it makes a difference , like is all the money , have been in the top one percent and I've got four to the top half percent . So I think the reviews help as well .

And asking people and just the equipment as well , like , like I use an audio techniques twenty twenty usb mic . It goes into the computer , lot of people use the mixer , but unless you I'm not technical unless you understand that stuff , a lot of times people have crickling . There's an extra kind of connection to go wrong . So it's like , why have that ?

If the quality is good , you don't need it . But if you understand that , by all means go ahead and get a better quality thing . Same with the camera , same with the lighting .

I mean I've got a ring light there , I've got a LED light there , so when you've got the good light and people see you better , same kind of like what you see there now is a green screen , because I usually use mine with Zoom and I've got I use a QR code so people can find me easy with a QR code .

Before people would actually need a special app for QR codes . Now you just point the phone , press the button and it brings you straight to all the links , to all my . But if I'm on another call , I have like I do live calls for two hours and it's on stream . I have a trove where it looks like a wall and I still have my books there to the side .

So just kind of making sure that you try to have the quality as good as possible . I use Audacity for editing and I just tell people it's easy . It's like Audacity is free and it's like a cut and pasting , so you can do that and I encourage people as well .

Then , like some people say they just want to do the audio , I said that's grand , but you're missing out on a big audience . So I put it on Bitchute , I put it on Rumble . I know there's 50 other platforms . I don't want to overwhelm myself , so I kind of stick to the ones that I see are working .

I tried about 20 others and I could see it wasn't worth my while for the number of views that it was getting . So I kind of just look at OK , this makes sense , and the same with , like , your RSS feed . There's a lot of platforms out there that you have to go in and manually do it .

A lot of the ones will kind of send it to Apple , spotify and things like that , but there's a lot more out there and you have to manually do that . So it's a case of having the list of that and sending them to the different ones and it's like it's easy to do , but it's strange . But most people don't do it .

So is that the reason that minor up the top charts ? Because I do all these little things and one thing I would say is most people don't do it like they all want the magic sauce or marketing and if they all think it's going to be

a special thing , just do this and you get a gazillion downloads . What I say is have a fantastic interview . That's the most important thing , because if you've got a decent interview with good content , at least you have a chance that people will come back and they'll share it , and you have to .

That has to be the priority , basically serve those , serve your listeners right . Exactly . No , it's like what I would say is I'm not technical , I can do it , anyone can do it . And like when I'm going through it with clients , everybody has their kind of own speed .

Some people they're like a level OK , let's get the logo , let's do this and they'll want to compress it into two weeks . There's others that want to take their time and do it over two months and I kind of I work with all of them because I don't want anybody to not feel comfortable . You have to kind of go .

This is the pace that I want , and once they do that , then they'll enjoy the process more and then you can look at different monetizations as well . You can reach out to people and you know even a few books and stuff like that .

There's a lot of different things to be looking and if you spend the time kind of researching or just following groups and pages and listening to podcasts like yours , you pick up tips from guests that come on and that's how you actually just keep improving . So if you put the effort in to learn , you will keep getting better .

But a lot of people they just start it , they put their legs up and they just think , ok , it'll grow eventually , and unfortunately , that's not . That's not how it works .

I'm with my son and when I'm talking to my friends , and so I kind of live in the present moment . I never worry about kind of what's happening next week or whatever , not that I don't plan or have goals for the year , but I'm always present in what I'm doing .

I'm not living , I'm not living on the phone , I'm not distracted , I don't have notifications all the time . So when I'm there , I'm there .

So there's there's no pushy sale or anything like that , and then people can book a discovery call . Everything is in that , and my five podcasts as well . They'll find all the links up biolink forward slash podcaster .

Because if you do it from the heart and you know , you're changing someone's life .

So , for example , a lot of people trying to tell because they go , I'm going to get in five donors and getting 10 downloads , or whatever I say if you're in a room and say , say it's 20 donors and 20 people turn up , you would be delighted , a lot of speakers would be happy for 20 people to be in a room .

And if you come back next week and there's 18 of them but there's two new people , so you've 20 again , it's all good and you would speak . But for some reason , people look at the analytics and the numbers and they get kind of disheartened .

But if , with your conversation that you're having with people , if you change one person's life or you just help them and the message gets to them when they need it .

And so , for example , when I was doing my numbers , the very first time I was doing it , the very first speaking podcast was the first one and I was about three weeks in before I hit a hundred . I was going around everyone . Did you listen to it yet ? Did you listen to it , yet Then I got to like a thousand . That was a milestone .

I remember when I got to a million with the different things I went . I know like the Polish one is over two million with the audio and the video and it's like it's good . I track everything and I'm watching it .

But it's not about the numbers , it's all about just kind of OK , this is growing , but I know I'm helping people and you just get message back people kind of grateful , and when you're knowing that you're helping mankind .

So I suggest to people that if you can do something that's going to help people , or if you have something that's annoying in the world , why not create something that makes change ? Instead of expecting some politician or somebody to do it , why not be you that makes the change ?