My name is Jim Beach and I have been a podcaster for the last 10 years. My show, School for Startups Radio, won the Small Business Administration Media Award (a national award given by our government). There have been over 2,150 episodes and we try to release 4 shows a week. It’s available on a bunch of Internet platforms and 42 AMFM stations around the country. Some of the stations are really good, and some of the stations are really not so good. 🙂
When I started my show, my primary goal was to drive listeners. Everyone says that listeners is the key to add sales and sponsors. Fortunately, my show grew in listener numbers, but that didn’t seem to lead to revenue.
Serendipitously, I was offered to take the podcast and turn it into a radio show for a weekly slot. Pretty soon that turned into more than a dozen stations and I was able to call myself a nationally syndicated radio host. I didn’t really notice any difference in my listener numbers, but I did notice a substantial difference in the way people responded to the words radio host.
My speaking fees doubled when I added radio to my resume.
Like most podcasters., I am also a writer and speaker. I am frequently pitching myself to event planners, trying to convince them to hire me for one of their speaking slots. When I started adding ‘nationally syndicated radio host’ to my pitch, my close ratio doubled. One meeting planner summarized the situation simply, “You being a radio host will make it easy to convince my boss to hire you!” Remember the old expression about IBM? ‘Nobody ever got fired for buying from IBM.’ I feel like this is the same situation. No meeting planner ever got in trouble or questioned for hiring a nationally syndicated radio host. It adds a layer of credibility that no other descriptor can.
Self-publishing took the glory out of being a published author. Everyone knows that it’s incredibly easy to be a best seller on Amazon. So, the words best-selling author now mean nothing. Anyone can be a podcaster. But becoming a radio host is an unknown. No one knows how certain shows just end up on the air. It implies a high level of being selected and differentiates the host as someone whose show was selected from hundreds of the very best.
To be naturally syndicated means that lots of stations have decided to carry your show, which makes it even more unique, prestigious, elite, selective and cool. When I tell people that I am a nationally syndicated radio host, the response is always overwhelmingly positive. People are impressed and surprised. The most common question is, “How many stations are you on?” I have never been asked any question that indicates anything other than being impressed. People aren’t educated enough to ask if individual stations have a strong signal or a weak signal. It’s just so impressive, people don’t know what to do or say except to be impressed.
It is a career changer in a way that nothing else can do.
My Simon Sinek Why? My goal is to get you on the radio and to grow your career!
Navigating your way into and through the radio industry is incredibly difficult. The team behind Pod24 has decades of experience in the industry and thousands of connections with station owners and program directors. We leverage this to find affordable space on stations around the country. If you are interested in getting started with just a small commitment or if you are interested in having your entire show on, we can even make that happen! Our goal is to teach as many podcasters about growing with radio as possible.
Meet your Pod24 Team dedicated to getting you on the RADIO!
