Doug: Hey, what’s going on? Welcome to the Doug show. My name’s Doug Cunnington. And today I’m going to talk about failures of 2024. I racked up several this year, so I’ll share some of that. I was a little inspired to do this episode because.
Earlier this week, just yesterday in fact, I did a live stream about niche sites being dead. I hate those kind of headlines. Seems clickbaity. People always say that kind of thing. Affiliate marketing is dead. Niche sites are dead. Podcasting, YouTube, like whatever the thing is, people will throw in like, Hey, this business model is dead.
And well, the thing is that earlier this year, I’ve been doing a few of those just sort of titles anyway, because it’s like, Hey, is this still a good idea to do this? And the fact is, if you’ve been following the show, you know, that I number one stopped promoting my courses over around 18 months ago, I think it was April or July of 2023.
It was the last time I even offered it for sale and then didn’t sell it for over a year. I let the people that were in the course finish up, provided whatever support they needed. And then finally, a few months ago, I sunset the courses, removing access. There’s a podcast episode about that, where I talk about sunsetting the courses.
And basically I said, Hey, this is not a viable option. Some of the material within the course is not valid anymore. Timeframes, strategies, tools. They’re not valid anymore. The ideas are maybe okay, but the specifics are off. And in fact, there’s still value in certain portions of the course, because I talk about hiring freelancers, putting together content, there’s some information about just general business and marketing practices that are indeed still relevant.
And for anyone that asked, I actually gave them access. To the videos, just a different format. And if someone wanted to still review some of the templates for hiring a freelancer, then they can go check it out. Like they still have access to all that stuff, but I decided to sunset the courses. And on Monday, so that would be December 16th.
I got an email from the authority hacker affiliate marketing program and said, They’re discontinuing the program. They’re going to pay out whatever they owed, but they’re discontinuing the affiliate program because they’re discontinuing their courses. So the, the full line of courses built on essentially a content websites for the most part.
So it’s, uh, SEO is the traffic source. Maybe there’s a couple other traffic sources like YouTube or Pinterest. I actually never went through those courses, but, but basically the business model is done, right? It’s, it’s not valid anymore. The way the SERP show up, the algorithm updates, the helpful content update, the.
The big part was like the traffic source. So there’s still ways to monetize, right? If you know, SEO, like you’re probably going to be able to bounce into some other thing, but anyway, as I was talking about this shift on the live stream, I had an idea of like, Oh, well, I’ve worked on a few things this year and things didn’t work out like I thought a lot of people don’t tell these stories They’re not, it’s not embarrassing, but it’s, it is not a success story, right?
So people want to get inspired and hear success stories and that those could be really helpful in indeed they are inspiring. That’s what the audience typically wants. And there have been. You know, years when this business model worked really well. And basically I would interview people from all different walks of life, from different geographies, different skill sets, different education levels, all huge, wide range of people doing different things.
And they were, they were putting their own spin on it. And it was great. It was, again, it was inspiring because a lot of times you could see yourself in whoever I was interviewing. So that’s all, that’s all great. But as time has gone on over the last couple of years, we’re seeing less and less of that. In fact, we’re, we’re seeing more stories of like, Hey, I had a successful business and now it is crumbling before me and I don’t know what to do.
And the thing is we had like a pretty long run. So. I mean, things changed. Slow and then fast. And it’s sort of in an unrecoverable state such that, you know, big company, I mean, I I’m running a small little thing. I sold a handful of courses over the years. It was great. I enjoyed it. But like authority hacker was on a different level, a different level of, of sales and marketing.
Their audience is huge. Their email list is huge. Big Facebook groups. Really great. reputation across the industry. So anyway, the point is the fact that they’re, they’re, they’re shutting it down is big, and I think there was a lot of, there’s been a lot more chatter. Like I basically, I did the live stream and sent it out to my email list within a few hours, essentially.
So anyway, I’m going to talk about my failures a little bit. That’ll be the first part. And then I’ll just give you some general updates. Interesting thing with, uh, this episode. And you’ll probably be able to notice a little bit more if you’re watching it, but I’m recording this in the morning. It’s about 1045 I’m going to record for a few minutes here and then I’m going to go to the gym and then I’m going to come back and do part two, which is just the general other updates of what is going on.
So keep that in mind. Yeah. One quick note, I’m going to plug my budget coach. So they have hopped on as a sponsor and I’m going to do a little read for them in a bit. And I appreciate them linking up. I actually did an interview with the founder, Zach Welchel. I think that’s how we pronounce his name, Zach Welchel.
And it’s essentially a, you know, A zero based budgeting situation. So very simple and I’ll do a little read for them later, but just want to give them a quick shout out. It’s, it’s great to have some sponsors hop on and help support the show. All right. So number one failure, I think, I think this was like sort of the biggest investment of time.
Ranking revolution was my podcast, YouTube brand around. Professional level marketing and SEO. And I thought, this is a good idea. I’m going to, I’m going to start this podcast. I’m good at podcasting. That’s what I tell myself. And, and then I’m going to sell it. And I had the idea for about a year and I couldn’t quite get it out of my head.
Apparently I had too much free time or something like that. And I had floated the idea to some of my entrepreneur friends who, I mean, I think they’re honest with me. So if you bring a friend, a bad idea, they’ll say, yeah, what about this? What about that? This is bad because of this reason. And they had some valid points.
And I was like, that’s true. I have this contingency, these couple options, if that happens to be an issue, but we’ll figure it out when we get to it. And my, my thesis was if I have a show. With an audience with regular subscribers that are looking forward to the show, then we could work out any other details.
It’s, it’s like, if a business is bringing in money, then you’re going to be able to figure out a lot of the details, right? If you’re, if you’re selling stuff, if you have revenue, you could solve some problems. My thesis with the show, if there’s an audience, That audience will be valuable because it will be SEO professionals, agency owners, maybe marketing directors at small to medium sized companies that have a budget for marketing for outreach and stuff like that.
And basically it didn’t work out. It didn’t work out. So I think the number one issue was the amount of effort and time that I put into it. So I am in a, I’m in a different stage of my, Life and entrepreneurship journey than I was 10 years ago. I’m 45 now. So when I was 35, I was a little bit more you know, enthusiastic and active.
And last night I went to bed at nine and slept for like nine hours. So, I mean, I’m looking forward to sleep these days. It’s so rewarding. It’s so rewarding. I’m in a much better mood if I get a lot of sleep. Whereas. If I was like 25 or so, and I was thinking, wow, I really want to outwork people. I would have put more time into it.
So looking back now, I see, I just didn’t put nearly enough time. And that would be like, I mean, that’s just table stakes to try to grow the show. And I thought I had an unfair advantage because I know the podcasting format. I have the equipment. I could do video as well. I also have a strong network within the SEO and marketing community.
And I can get those interviews, even with a newer show, I can get those interviews and probably have a pretty good, interesting interview and then grow, grow the show. So though, I think that. I mean, those were good things, right? So I did have an unfair advantage with the podcasting expertise and the network.
So with those two things, pretty good. The areas that I failed. So number one, while I do have a good network, I did not, and I, I don’t typically go to SEO or marketing conferences. I think if I would have attended more, I could build even more connections and let people know. Hey, I have a show that. I want you to be on and grow from there.
Or, you know, I wanted someone to buy it. My thought was, I could probably grow the show within like six months and have someone buy it and then go just move on. I would give them all the old content, all the episodes, I would give them the systems. I set up the show on Transistor FM, which basically allows you to do Dynamic ad insertion.
So someone could put ads in the old catalog. So that was a bit of an issue with the network, but the biggest, the biggest thing is like, I just wasn’t letting people know about the show in an effective way. Maybe that would have looked more like, um, you know, doing ads, another podcast, being a guest on other podcasts and that sort of thing.
The good part is. I recorded shows and those shows still have valuable information, whether they’re solo or if it was an interview. So I could publish them on the Doug show. So it’s totally fine. It wasn’t a total waste, but at some point I realized I’m not getting the downloads that I expected. I think across YouTube and the audio version, probably only a couple hundred downloads or listens per episode.
Some of them got more. Depending on the topic, but just a few hundred, which is not bad. I mean, honestly, if someone started a podcast out there and you get a couple of hundred people listening, like that’s not bad. That’s not, that’s not bad at all. So I decided to pull the plug on it and I dragged my feet a little bit.
And then I was like sunk cost. Stop just stop. So the show is still available. Luckily on YouTube, it’s just available out there, but I did leave the audio version out there and I just reduced the the level of hosting that I have. So I can’t put in dynamic ads now, but if anyone out there wants to buy the show, then.
They could upgrade the hosting again and insert dynamic ads. So anyway, essentially I reduce cost. It’s limping along. I could shut it down. There’s a website out there, so I’m probably spending, I don’t know if I had to think about it, it might be like 30 a month because there’s like hosting. There’s the actual website hosting.
And then there is there’s probably one other thing that I’m paying for. The domain name. So. If you, if you think about that, it could be like 30 bucks a month that I’m, that I’m paying for it. So it could be on the chopping block. Maybe it’s something where I’m like, Hey, if somebody just wants to buy this thing, I will sell it.
It’s a good name. Ranking revolution. I think the other part, there’s always external forces, right? So I can’t blame. That, but basically with SEO being what it is today. And essentially my, my old content is mostly about content sites and niche sites and authority sites. People are not interested in that because as I opened and as people were talking about, it’s basically not a business model anymore.
Someone actually commented on the live stream that I did. Cause I was like, Hey, niche sites are like, don’t waste your time. Do something else. Pick something else to work on, but someone wrote in while it’s a valid comment, it’s kind of worthless. They said, Oh this person is still doing pretty good with their sites.
And this other person, while that’s true, they had big sites and they’re earning probably, I don’t know, 10 percent of what they were before. Like. It’s not, it’s not a valid argument. It’s like, here’s an expert that had a huge, huge business and now it’s a smaller business, but they’re still doing it. Well, that’s not a very compelling argument to have a beginner start their side hustle in this area where the only people left around where the, some of the biggest players, and they’re just a shell of what they used to be.
So. While it’s true, it’s kind of like, who fucking cares? Like that’s, that’s worthless. I’m glad they left the comment though, but it’s like, I’m not going to have a debate out there, but since I have my show, I can talk about that. So that was failure. Number one, ranking revolution. Number two, podcast accelerator.
So I actually ran a podcast accelerator and I launched it the worst time ever at the end of June. December of 2023, I had three of my friends actually signed up people that I know people that were into podcasting and they actually launched their show. All three of them launched their show. One guy Mark’s money mind.
So he’s publishing every, every week. I think maybe he missed one, but he’s doing international travel. He’s staying on the schedule. He’s on it. Jason is out there with a digital. And he’s, he published a few episodes but he, he’s busy working. So he knew his schedule was going to be a little cyclical and.
He would devote more time to it later. He does a great job. It reminds me of Seth Godin. He prepares a lot more ahead of time than I do. And his questions are well thought out. If it’s an interview and he has a couple of solo episodes too. And then Amberlee Grant has jump in feet first. And she’s a extremely busy woman with two young kids, a full time job and a bunch of other stuff going on.
She’s published a handful of episodes, but she also knew that her. Publishing schedule was going to be a little bit sporadic. So once she has more time, I think she will be publishing a lot more. And part of it is like, just get going, like just to get a few episodes out and then keep going from there. So I’ll link up so you can check out their shows.
But basically I had a few people sign up that I knew were highly interested in podcasting. I tried to relaunch cause I was like, okay. I will relaunch this because people do ask me about podcasting all the time. And what happens if you give someone free advice is they don’t take it. And then you just waste your time.
The bad part is I’m in a weird situation. So even in my sort of local friend group and community, it’s part of the Mr. Money Mustache headquarters, coworking space. So it’s a coworking space. And occasionally someone will say, Hey, Doug. No, it’s podcasting. Why don’t you ask him about it? And the thing is, it just, I mean, I like to help people out, but if they don’t take my advice, then it kind of bugs me because it just fucking wastes my time.
So I tend to, when it comes down to it, I’m not helpful. So I’ll give them some light advice. Like, Hey, check out this information. If you are. Interested, like go do your own homework, right? Go do your homework. And what I ended up doing was just like pushing. I’m like, Hey, here’s a couple things, but really, if you want to know more, like I have a course thing that you could take if you want to.
And basically I tried to relaunch this accelerator. I would let some local people know, but I launched it to my email list, which you might even be on. And. Sold zero, right? I sold zero. Luckily, I know the software and I know how to market and launch. So actually putting together the materials. Wasn’t too bad.
I also ran it as a workshop. So it was a live workshop. I didn’t record a bunch of stuff ahead of time. I did exactly what work I needed to, but no more than that. So I launched, I sent out a handful of emails. People are interested in podcasting. It’s still a really high growth industry. There’s bigger.
People, bigger companies getting involved in podcasting. So podcasting is still growing a lot, but I sold zero and the main issue, 99 percent sure it’s the wrong product market fit, right? So I have an audience of side hustlers. Potential side hustlers, people that are interested in online business. There’s a handful of people on the email list in the audience, listening, watching now that run pretty big companies, right?
Maybe they do e commerce, maybe they run an agency. So there’s a handful. It might only be five to 10 percent of the audience, but there’s some high level people that potentially would want to start a podcast for their agency as a lead generation mechanism. And basically. Wrong product market fit. The other thing with courses is, or workshops in this case, the timing has to be right.
So even if someone is super interested in whatever it is, you’re trying to run or teach or whatever, they also need to have the free time and they need to have been thinking about it over the last few weeks or a couple months, or probably that week. Like it needs to be. Something they’re thinking of. So if that isn’t the case, then you’re not going to sell any.
And I’ve shared this information before. In a previous podcast months ago. And I actually talked to someone else that very week. Who’s a well established creator with a well established brand and other stuff. They had a course that they launch every whatever quarter, six months. I don’t know. Anyway, they told, they had the same experience.
They tried to launch their course and typically they would get a handful. I don’t know how many I’m going to make it up, but say they would get like 20 or 30 students that would enroll each time. They had zero as well. And they were like, yeah, I haven’t told anyone this, but I also had zero enrolls and it’s just because our audiences were generally around this content site world and potentially like if a content site.
Was, was doing well. If this was a few years ago, I probably could have done a podcast accelerator and people with successful courses or sorry, with successful niche sites would actually think I went and add another marketing channel. I want to learn. Podcasting. I have a team of writers. I have a content manager.
I have this thing running really well. I can actually just push some of that stuff aside and work on a podcast and be like an even bigger player and have a YouTube channel associated with it too. And just be like a presence out there. So anyway, podcast accelerator, zero sales. I nixed it. At this point, I was looking at my Kajabi, which that’s my course platform.
That was where I was hosting my email list, full funnel platform. Kajabi is a great overall. Just platform. You could do just about everything that you need to do, including coaching. There was a community there and you could also host your podcast there. So it’s really a full suite of everything. And it has good integrations between each of the pieces.
So my annual. Payment was coming up, which is around 2, 000 at the level that I had. So I was looking at paying 2, 000 for courses that were all sunset at this point and my accelerator sold zero. Had to make a hard decision and just say, all right, I’m migrating off. I’ll leave it active. I’m actually paying a little bit to leave my stuff over there.
So if I wanted to go back to Kajabi, I could, and things would be intact, but I did, I did migrate over to kit and I was like, we’ll see how it goes over there. Luckily kit actually introduced a free level. So. My email list was after cleaning it, it was under 10, 000. So I was able to move it over to kit and not pay whatever 50 bucks a month or a hundred bucks a month or whatever.
So functionality is fine over there. I think they’ve improved it a lot. I know when kit first came out, I was like, This is not that great. I know they’re, they have great marketing and all the affiliate partners were good. But after five years, it’s a actually a very good product. And I have three email lists over there right now.
So, and this last thing is not a fail, but my. My courses that I sunset, I mean, luckily I was, I was ahead of like authority hacker, which waited a few more months. But I mean, the fact is like the niche site business model was so volatile over the past year. It’s crazy that anyone was still teaching it. So it’s like, you pivoting and stuff, and we’re wrapping up this first segment here.
Cause I do need to go to the gym, but. I’ll leave you with this interesting. I think it’s an interesting thought right now. We’re in a spot where no one knows what the next big business model for side hustlers is going to be. There’s some stuff going on. People are like, Oh yeah, you do drop shipping. Or it’s like, Hey, jump on this affiliate marketing on Tik TOK thing, which That might be a foundation of sand there, but there’s other things you could do.
I’ve been talking a lot about local newsletters. So it’s like email plus the locality. So that’s really hot. A lot of people were talking about a lot of interest and it seems like it’s an area where you have an unfair advantage in your own community, but the point is. It’s leveled the playing field for now and there’s no like clearly defined thing to do.
So when I got into Niche sites, it was 2013. It was just after panda I think came out So there was a lot of churn some people were getting out of the industry and People tweaked what they were doing a little bit. There were more keyword research tools coming out. And right now we’re in a spot where like, no one knows what’s going to be working.
It’s not defined. There’s not people teaching it out there in a mature way where it’s like, we know this is the framework that works. There might be people out there. Talking about whatever the next big thing might be, but there’s not the same sort of blueprint out there, or at least like not in my ecosystem.
So there might be people out there shouting like, well, there is, there is this person talking about local newsletters and they have a bunch of courses on it and all that stuff already. And I’m sure those are out there, but it’s just not in my world. And it’ll take a little while, like for things to sort of spread out and.
You know, the one that is probably going to be, you know, even more saturated. People have been talking about it for like a couple of years, Amazon influencer program. So it’s getting more and more saturated. People are talking about it more and more. I still haven’t signed up. I don’t care. I’m not going to, I don’t think I’m going to do it.
It sounds interesting, but. If I would have started a year and a half ago when I was starting to hear more and more about it, I think it could be, you know, a pretty viable thing. But like a lot of this stuff, if you don’t, if you don’t get in early, there’s like a wave where more people get in and then it really jumps and then the effectiveness goes down.
It’s just kind of what happens. So right now, I think there’s like big opportunities and I’ve been listening to Scott Galloway’s a couple podcasts, not all of them, but one thing that he mentioned in a recent episode was whenever he started a business, he started many businesses and whenever he started a business during.
Like a recession or a downturn. Those are the ones that were successful. Whenever he started something, when things were sort of on a growth path, when there was everyone was successful, everything was going great. Those ended up being like the tail end of a growth period. So it’s interesting while it’s.
It’s undefined right now. We don’t know what the thing is going to be. There’s tons of opportunities out there. And like I said, it leveled the playing field. So there’s experts out there. Like I have a lot of experience in certain areas and other, other people do too. Like a lot of us had like big websites over the years.
We’re really good at SEO. Things have changed. I’m not as good at SEO, but I have other skills. The thing is like. All those skills that are not applicable anymore, like niche site skills, levels of playing field. So it’s very interesting. And I, I mean, I think in a few, you know, maybe in a year or so, there’ll be certain pockets, like maybe drop shipping, we’ll get some resurgence or something like that, but maybe it’ll be around AI, maybe it’ll be around some other stuff, but.
There’s a lot of opportunities out there. All right, I’m going to head to the gym. And when I get back, we’ll talk about some other updates of the year. Maybe what’s coming up next year, which means I’ll have to think of a few things, but I’ll be back in a little while, maybe a little bit sweatier.
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All right, I’m back from the gym. I had a nice little workout and it was pretty fun. Working out is something I do, I probably like, if I’m honest. Maybe it’s four to seven times a week, but it is, it’s more often than not. It is almost every day I go to the gym and sometimes it’s a light workout. Like you really shouldn’t overwork yourself and like work out too often.
And I’ve, I’ve changed. some things up over the last year or so. And you may remember it, it’s kind of, I mean, I’ve been doing this podcast long enough where like things have shifted in my daily habits. So I used to intermittent fast all the time. I think when I discovered like the entrepreneurship and side hustle podcast, you know, Tim Ferriss kind of stuff and smart passive income, like people talked a lot more about intermittent fasting and it was sort of a, not, not a fad, but it was more.
popular. So I, I did that. And I was like, okay, my mind is sharper in There’s some benefits for, you know, not eating a crappy breakfast in the morning, which is what I used to eat like toaster strudel or whatever when I was a kid. And cereal and then a lot of other stuff. It’s just like pure sugar. I mean, pancakes, cake is in the name.
Put sugar, sugary syrup all over it. It’s just like straight up carbs. So anyway, I’ve changed some stuff Because I was intermittent fasting for years and I probably wasn’t quite eating enough. But the thing I would do While I’d watch these youtubers and they’re like if you work out fasted you get these great benefits and all that So at intermittent fast I would go to the gym Basically fucking starving.
I would go to the gym and I would be so hungry and I would try to work out and I would just be so weak. I didn’t, I wasn’t working out very well. And like I said, I would hear YouTubers and other like experts talk about like. Doing cardio while you’re fasted, lifting weights while you’re fasted, like all these benefits of like being fasted.
And it wasn’t working out for me. I was working out harder, but I was basically just like making no progress. And I was, I was hungry when I was trying to work out. So anyway. started listening to this show called mind pump a little bit more. And it’s good. I’ve grown a little tired of it, to be honest with you.
I think they put out like three shows a week. I like the banter. There’s four guys on there. They they have a good, entertaining show where it’s just like, you’re a fly on the wall. And I learned a lot from them as far as diet. I think that would maybe the biggest thing like diet and maybe like, Don’t work out too much.
So I was over I was working out too hard. I was overworking myself and I wasn’t letting myself recover and I was underfeeding myself. So it’s like under, under consuming calories. So anyway, this year I started eating a lot more protein, so probably more protein than I need, but, but it’s good for me. I feel very good about it.
And I feel like I have a lot of energy. So. I’ll have roughly, I would say like 170 to 220 grams of protein per day, which is a lot. If you count your macros, you know that is a shitload of meat. You don’t accidentally Hit 150 grams of protein in a day. And you definitely don’t accidentally hit 200 or 220 grams.
So one thing that I’ve shifted, which this sounds crazy. People you’re going to think, Doug, you’re bananas. That sounds gross. I’ll eat oatmeal. So I’ll make like old fashioned oats and then I’ll put in meat of some kind, usually like grass fed ground beef or ground Turkey. So sounds counterintuitive.
Sounds weird. Cause most people think oatmeal is, you know, sort of dessert y like cinnamon and brown sugar and other stuff like that. Oatmeal is just a it’s like a starch, right? It’s like rice or pasta or something like that. Except it has all the fiber that we need to keep our cholesterol low and feel full.
So anyway, I’ll eat a lot of protein in the morning. Usually like 50 grams of protein in the morning. I’ll put in some like peanut butter powder and some other stuff to boost it. Every now and then I was making it with like, bone broth kind of stuff, which also has more protein. So anyway, I’m getting a lot more protein.
And when I go to work out, I will Make sure I have some food beforehand so I don’t feel so weak. And I think I’ve actually put on a little bit of muscle, not a huge amount. I would say probably just like three to five pounds and I’ve equally probably put on like. Three to five pounds of fat as well. So I need to cut a little bit, but I definitely am a little bit bigger and stronger than it was just a little bit, just a little bit.
It turns out it’s very hard to put on muscle and I, you know, it’s my, I won’t mention which relative, right? Don’t need to get myself in trouble here. But a relative of mine was like, Oh yeah, I just put on muscle. So it’s a, it’s a woman by the way. So she’s like, I put, I put on. I don’t want to get big, right?
You hear people say, I don’t want to lift weights. Cause I don’t want to get big. And I would hear people say that and they’re like, Oh yeah. Started lifting weights and I got huge. It’s like bull shit. It is so fucking hard to put on muscle. And in the fact is like, as we’re getting older your, your muscle just kind of withers away.
It goes away, you know, if you don’t use your muscle, your body will, um, I mean, it just, it withers away. I don’t, I don’t know where it goes. It turns into fat, but basically like muscle takes a lot of calories. Your body wants to be efficient. So if, uh, if you’re not using your muscle, then it’s just going to go away.
And the thing is for women, especially like to do weight training and put on muscle, it’s really good for your bones, right? It’s something that you have to stay ahead on. So the other thing that just, it occurred to me. In the last few weeks, which seems obvious, people talk about how, oh, your metabolism, it slows down when you get older.
The reason why your metabolism slows down when you get older is because you don’t have as much muscle and the, your normal calories that you need per day, it goes down, but if you keep eating the same amount, then you’re going to run into trouble and put in weight, put on that weight. So the thing is, if you If you’re putting on muscle or if you’re maintaining or you’re getting stronger or whatever, which is why I’m trying to lift weights, then your metabolism is going to be in a great place.
And that’s what I want. I really just want my metabolism to be Like robust and flexible and healthy enough so that when I go on vacation or at the time that I’m recording this, it’s around the holidays. I just want to be able to eat whatever I want as much as I want for those small segments of time.
Most of the time I need to be eating. Fairly healthy whole foods some kind of meat, some kind of veggie, maybe a little starch, but not too much. And like I said, I feel so much better. I have way more energy. I’m working out harder than I have been and it feels good. It feels really good. So that’s a positive thing overall.
Of course, a positive thing. And one thing that I did over this past year was while I was trying to put on more muscle, I really cut back on the cardio that I used to do. And that again, is something that, that the mind pump guys mentioned a lot. It’s a podcast, YouTube channel, that sort of thing. So people can check it out and they talk about.
Sending your body like sort of signals on like what you want it to do. So if you’re eating a surplus of calories, high protein in your lifting weights, you’re telling your body you put on muscle, you need muscle. If you’re doing cardio or like endurance training. where you’re like training for a marathon or whatever, you’re telling your body to be efficient.
You don’t need as much muscle. You need to use you know, the, the fat stores in your body. You need to process carbs and be efficient so that you can run long distances for long periods of time. So over the summer, I wanted to hike, which is cardio, right? So I actually, I slowed down a little bit on the weight training and I did more cardio.
And I hiked, like I said, two 14ers this year. So Quandary near Breckenridge and Mount Elbert near Leadville, which is the highest point in Colorado. So that those were two good hikes. And I did step back a little bit from the weight training and did a little bit more cardio. So I think I might do a seasonal thing that, that should work pretty well for me.
In other news, I have another podcast. It’s called Mile High Fi. And I’ve been doing that for I think like three, three, four years now, three or four years. And my good friend, Carl Jensen, he was the co host. He’s been retired for seven years now. Is that right? Seven years? And we started this show in 2021.
So this is the third year, I guess. Was it 2021? I think that’s right. Anyway, we had a great time for a little while. We did two shows per week. Then we decided to do one show per week, which was smart because we had some scheduling trouble. But the interesting thing with Carl, while he’s been retired for several years, he is so fucking busy.
It’s insane. He’s busy. He’s actually been traveling a lot more like post COVID. So he’s been traveling a ton going all over the world and all over the country. And he. Just stays insanely busy. So at some point he was like, it’s too much stuff. I need to quit the show. So he quit the show. He has recorded with me a couple more times.
He’s still in the community of, Like the financial independence and personal finance folks. So he’s still in the community in that he, he still attends conferences and participates and he’s around. So I think he’ll still record it with me every now and then, but I love doing the show. I like podcasting.
I mean, I started another show this year that ended up scrapping it because it’s too much and didn’t work out like I thought, but I really like the financial independence community. In the topic area, it’s newer to me. It’s interesting. It’s a much bigger. niche and topic area than affiliate marketing and the SEO and the stuff that we talk about on this show.
Typically it’s really fun. A lot of smart, interesting people and really love it. So I was like, I’m going to keep doing the show. I have an opportunity to like change the format or do some things different, largely keeping it the same, but what has happened is the schedule opens up. So if you have to schedule with multiple people, It’s harder to do, of course.
But the thing that I didn’t even realize is like, when Carl and I would record, he, he would say, Hey, I’m around for the, this week or two, let’s record a bunch then. So we would record like three or four episodes in a week and that’s good for about a month, but then he’d be gone for a while. Or I, I would be gone.
I traveled a lot too. And when he left, it opened up the schedule so I could just schedule with whoever, whenever I wanted. So I was actually able to get. Very far ahead on the schedule so much that I was like, I need to slow down recording and why don’t I just take a couple of weeks off here? I don’t have to overdo it.
So it’s cool to get a good pipeline of episodes. But I need to start thinking a little further out and like, do I want to have maybe like a theme for, for these set of shows or something like that? Overall, I was like, this is crazy that I was able to get so far ahead on the schedule just because scheduling is easier when you’re only dealing with one or two people.
One thing that I, I didn’t even think about was. It’s kind of funny. Right after Carl quit, I was telling one of my friends. Actually, I was telling Amberly. And she was like, you can quit the show, you know, like you don’t have to keep doing it if you don’t want to. And I was like, I, that thought never even crossed my mind.
I was just like, this, this is a good show. I like doing it and I enjoy it. But I never even thought like, Hey, I can scrap it. And then I took a step back after she mentioned it to me. And I was like, do I want to quit doing the show? No, I actually enjoy it quite a bit. It’s fairly large. It’s small in the scope of big.
Huge podcast, but it gets several thousand downloads per episode and has a decent following on YouTube. And the interesting thing is like, when I do go to conferences and other places, like I can tell. That a lot of people, they do listen to the show. So it’s kind of cool when that happens, people listen and they know the inside jokes and all that stuff, and it makes it pretty fun.
So I’m going to keep on doing it. Carl’s going to record with me every now and then if the schedule allows and all that. And one thing I also didn’t. Want to do yeah, I guess that’s, that’s a safe statement. I wasn’t thinking, Hey, I need to replace a permanent co host. Right. I was, I was not thinking I need to get a permanent co host.
I was thinking I’ll have other people fill in occasionally, whoever I want. Right. And actually one thing I need to follow up on when one thing I failed at, but one thing I need to follow up on is like when I went to FinCon, I talked to some of my friends who actually do have some of the. Biggest podcast in the space.
Like these are like top 100, top one 50 or so of business podcast and Apple podcast, not the subcategory or anything like that, where it’s like down here. These are huge. They, they get many tens of thousands of downloads per episode. But they were like, yeah, I do. I would want to be on your show.
And I, I mean, I asked him, I was like, I would want you to come on the show, but you seem like You’re very busy. And I, like, I don’t want to make you feel like you have to come on my show, but they were like, don’t know what we would want to come on your show. Like that’s, it’s great. Like we like talking to you.
So I need to follow up with a couple of those people. The, the interesting thing is like the folks that I’m thinking of, they actually have multiple shows per week that come out on their own channel. So it wouldn’t necessarily like grow my show that much. I don’t think. I don’t think it would. It might, but I don’t think it would.
Cause the thing is like, if someone’s putting out so much content on their own, usually their audience is not necessarily trying to find more of it. It’s already a bit saturated. Might be a strong word to use saturated, but basically if people listen to, let’s say they listen to like three or four or five podcasts in a couple of those podcasts put out like two or three episodes per week, it’s like, you know, Do they have enough time to listen to more shows?
Are they even looking for other shows with their favorite host on there? Maybe if they’re, you know, really obsessed fans, but I need to get some of those folks on, on my show. Cause they’re smart and they’re fun to talk to. The other thing, the thing that I failed at is being on other shows. So I actually, at one point, a couple of months ago, I started sending out emails to people I know, and I was like, I have an idea for a show would love to be on.
Couple people bit, couple people didn’t, and I kind of lost momentum. There’s so many shows out there. That’s the way you grow a podcast. Now that does bring me to a point of like, why am I doing this? Do, do I need to grow? It’s not like I need to grow as huge as I can or anything, but it’s like, what’s the goal?
Do I need to keep growing? Do I need to do a lot of outreach? I’m not going to sell anything directly. What am I doing? It’s an existential crisis. Really? One thing I did spend time on. One thing that I did spend time on is trying to get some advertisers. So we had my budget coach came on board, give a little test.
It’s a startup. I like Zach. I gave him a good deal and everything. But when I went to FinCon in Atlanta, back in October, one of my goals. For the first time was to talk to the vendors, talk to the companies, see who I might be able to work with. The, the overall, well, the, the finance industry has a lot of money.
The other thing is like advertisers were very active say in the 2019 to 2022 range or so. Money was free flowing that there was a lot more interest rates were lower. It was a different time. People were getting stimulus checks from the pandemic timeframe and all that. And maybe it was 2020 to 2021 and then 2022, like things sort of contracted.
Companies went out of business, advertising dollars weren’t there as much, but they’re, they’re sort of back. Like I was looking at some industry information and. Advertisers we’re trying to get in front of audiences podcasts are bigger than ever They play a role in the recent election. I mean, it’s a it’s a big deal and I was like I need to Like get out there.
I I want to try to do it on my own versus like working with an agency And I talked to a couple of friends who do work with agencies or they’re on a network of some kind and they have much bigger shows than me, by the way, much bigger shows, but they said, that’s pretty easy. Like, add, uh, opportunities come up.
I decide if I want to do it or not. And then we do it or not. Like that’s the thing they pay like 30 percent though. So it’s kind of a lot. And. I’m not trying to get rich with ads or anything like that. Again, it’s a modest show. I like the casual nature of it, but the thing is 30 percent is a lot. And if I could just work with people directly without having to go through the agency and I could like have a direct contact with like Zach and we could talk about what we want to do.
That’s easier for me. It’s easier for me to do. And there’s. There’s trade offs, right? Because there might be some back and forth or something like that. But if, if the people get what I’m trying to do and they, they see I’m not, I’m not, there’s not a lot of overhead. It’s like me shooting this stuff.
Callie edits it. Thank you, Callie, for editing these. And then, and then we publish it like that. It’s pretty straightforward. So pretty lean. And when the people get that, it’s like, okay, like, I’m not, I’m not trained to like, rake anyone over the coals or anything like that. But the point is I went, I talked to a lot of companies.
I, I think I did an okay job with the companies that aligned pretty well. There was one company I will mention Who it is, but I Thought we might we had we had some mutual contacts. I thought it might work out pretty well But the guy was like, I don’t think it’s the right audience Which I think maybe I’m I presented it wrong You know cuz I I’m not Well, the thing is, I don’t know how it would convert.
I have no clue how it would convert, but maybe the way I presented my ideal audience is different than what the actual audience is, which I actually think that’s true. So I probably should reframe it. Not blaming the guy. However, What he, he was like, Oh yeah. Yeah, I would love to be on your show. And I was like, I didn’t invite you.
I didn’t invite you on the show. Number one, but he was like, Oh yeah, I’ll come, I’ll come up with something and we can talk about it. I know you guys are always looking for a guest. And I was like, no, I’m actually, I’m not looking for guests. I get like so many pitches for people to be on my show and come up with a good story and let me know.
And then maybe I think he already. Said like, I don’t know if you’re, if you get the right show, you know, with my wi fi and so I was like, yeah, I don’t know if you’re good as a guest, cause you need to come up with some good stories or something. Cause I, I am not compelled now, now that I’m, I’m talking through it, maybe it is my fault for stating like sort of the topics that we talk about and not necessarily.
The audience, but overall had a couple successful things come through and it just. I mean, it goes to show, like, if you do go to conferences, if you meet people in person, of course, if some company pays for a booth at a pretty big conference, they have a budget for marketing. They have to pay a decent chunk to get the booth itself.
And then, you know, one of the deals that worked out with LLC attorney. Quick plug for them. This is a free, free plug for them. They wanted to start running some ads. So they’re sponsoring a couple of YouTube videos and they’ve been super flexible. They. Have been good to work with I’m actually working I guess directly with the person that was heading up the the ad stuff and it was it was her sort of baby and She’s asked for a certain amount of not control But she’s like, yeah I do want to take a look at the the script and stuff and I want to see the video before you publish it Which is totally fine with me.
I mean I’ve done generally like plain vanilla kind of stuff. I’m, I’m following a, a very not scripted, but it’s straight ahead. I’m not, I’m not, uh, I’m not saying anything weird. These are, these are good videos. Good, good content, good titles, all that stuff. So she’s like, Oh yeah, this looks great. Like let’s run with it.
And it’s been, yeah, overall good, good to work with her. But again, like I said, like she can see, she could tell, like, I’m, an individual creator. I don’t have a huge team. It’s just me doing some videos, doing some podcasts and stuff like that. But quick plug, you can like form a business, form an LLC, LLC, attorney.
com. And the The cost for you, zero, right? You can get a free, like they’ll waive their fee. You still have to pay the state fee. And I think there’s a coupon code or something, so we’ll make sure to include it here, but check the description and you can form an LLC. All right. So. That was the other thing, just ads, just adding some ads back into it.
And I think people don’t mind too much. I try to do a pretty good job with not having too many ads number one, but also sort of integrating the content with the ads and. I’ve done, you know, more ads in the past. Like they’ve, they’ve come and they’ve gone and sometimes there’s ads. Sometimes there’s not. I try to make it different frequently.
I like them to make it novel and have some variety in there. And I think that helps. So people. We’ll listen to the ad. So for mile high five, I usually like integrate the segment in with the advertiser and the thing is we don’t have too many. I mean, I just have one advertiser over there, ghost bed, and they’ve been great to work with as well.
The, the marketing contact that I have, he’s a listener of the show. So he wanted to support the show and it’s worked out really well. If I had more advertisers, I probably would put them more in the beginning or put them in a block. I do appreciate it when the ads are more in a block and you could sort of skip them if you want to.
However, that said I’m listening to more in different podcasts than I used to. Especially in the last year, they do have ads in the middle of them and they have ads way more frequently. So it’s more like a radio show and there’s a lot more. Yeah, there’s just like a lot more time spent on the ads. And I’m thinking some of my friends have a show.
It’s a pretty big one. It’s on iHeartRadio and they, I think they used to have like a 30 second ad spot in the beginning to pre roll. I think now they have like two minutes or so. And some other shows that I listened to, they’ll do a little intro and then it’ll go into like an eight minute segment of ads.
And I’ll usually skip those because those are often the same. There it’s not integrated at all. So it is some, I mean, I don’t want to have like too many ads. I just need enough for me to like cover the expenses of. Producing the shows and then maybe, maybe a little bit more to get me to show up and try to do a good job.
So like I said, I’m not trying to get rich with it, but I mean, podcasting is great. Like it scales really well. I enjoy the format for the Doug show. I don’t mind doing a solo episode every now and then. I’m probably going to get some more, you know, interviews lined up. There has been a request for more sass.
Founders and operators. So I may seek that out. I have a couple, a couple, um, couple people on the email list, couple friends that are founders, and I have them on the short list to hopefully be on before too long. So anyway, that is what we have. Oh, and a quick request. If you’ve hung on this long. If you haven’t done a, if you haven’t reviewed the Doug show podcast, especially on Apple, Apple podcast or Spotify, it would be awesome if you went over, left a little review.
Type something in and I think that helps out a little bit. People like to see those. It’s good to get them frequently. I don’t know if that helps algorithmically, but helps me out. So anyway, I think that’s it for today. Make sure you check out my budget coach link in the description. You can get a free trial rolling over there and I’ll catch you in the next episode.