NTR 8: Financial Wellness Expert & Podcast Host Steve Stewart

I’m just going to jump right out and say it – podcasting is fun. If you’re looking for new (and, ahem – fun) ways to grow and promote your business, you may just want to check out the craze which is podcasting.  Today’s guest is no stranger to that craze – going on his fourth year of publishing great content on finances to thousands of listeners across the globe.

You’ll Learn

• What is Podcasting?
• How do people ‘consume’ a podcast?
• Some of the biggest misconceptions
• Ways to generate revenue
• What it takes to start your own podcast
• Where Steve thinks podcasting will be in 5 years

Links Mentioned in This Episode

• MoneyPlanSOS
• YesYouCanPodcastToo
• John Lee Dumas’ Podcast
• Stacking Benjamins Podcast
• Plutus Awards
• Meetup
• St Louis Podcasting Meetup Group

About Steve Stewart

Steve Stewart is a husband, father, believer, and Financial Wellness Expert. He helps everyday Americans design a house of Financial Freedom and teaches them how to save money, eliminate debt, and invest for the future. His various online media forms have been recognized for a Plutus Award (pronounced Ploo-tuss) and his podcast, the MoneyPlan S.O.S. podcast, recently reached the Top 10 of the Investing category of iTunes. Steve is also very passionate about helping others with their podcasts. He founded the St. Louis Podcast MeetUp Group in order to help local St. Louisians create podcasts of their own to help grow their business.

For more – go to MoneyPlanSOS.com

Transcript

WH:

Hey everyone, Will Hanke here. Thanks for joining us today on “Navigate the Rapids”. I am really excited about today show, it’s all about podcasting and publishing. I think you’re really going to enjoy everything that we have for you today. My guest today is Steve Stuart, he is a father, husband, a believer and financial wellness expert from St. Louis.

He has a passion for teaching people how to get out of debt which he does through his small business. It can be found online at http://moneyplansos.com/.  He also host a podcast of the same name which helps everyday Americans pay attention (0:58). I like that. In fact his podcast has been nominated for two Plutus Awards. He won the best debt blog in 2014. He founded the St. Louis podcast meet up group to help sick local St. Louisiana create podcast of their own to grow their business. Why don’t you tell me a little about your own podcast?

SS:

It called the Money Plan SOS, it is a play on the word budget. Everyone needs a budget because finances are based on a budget and income. The website encourages person to recognize the type of spending habits they have. If you can’t identify if you have a bad or good spending habit, you will never get anywhere in life. This is what money plan SOS is in a nutshell and I have been doing this for 7 years.

WH:

I have always listened to your podcast. Tell me about your Plutus Awards.

SS:

The Plutus awards happens once every year for five years, to recognize excellence in the personal finance industry. They recognize financial and video bloggers as well as podcasters. My podcast and my blog was nominated for a Plutus award in their respected categories in the last two years. I actually won the best debt blog award. This actually blows my mind because my blogs are basically show notes for the podcasts.

WH:

That’s really amazing. So what is a podcast?

SS:

People consider it to be an internet radio show.  As a podcaster, we record something for people to listen to or watch at their leisure. People have a misconception that you need an iPod to listen to a podcast and that’s not true, especially not anymore. They also believe that you have to pay for it but the majority of the time it is free.

WH:

What are the different ways people consume podcast information?

SS:

The most know ways are through apple products. Podcast can be used on any smart phone that has an application that facilitates pod-catching clients. For instance I had to submit to my ITunes and Stitcher Radio that I had a show. These are two companies that offer an application for people to download or stream a show on the phone. For the most part you can use a phone and Bluetooth podcasts to your stereo. Car play is built into the car stereo so you can get your podcast there also.

WH:

What are some misconceptions about podcast?

SS:

The biggest misconception is that you need an apple product. Another misconception is that you are going to make money. I belong to a group with many people who believe that by interviewing a lot of people that they are going to get a lot of revenue from sponsors.

It is not like you launch something and sponsors come.  It is possible to make money with podcasts, but it is not immediately or directly. You have to have the technological knowledge to have a podcast as it involves recording and uploading. If you got those skills it is great but, are you a really good interviewer, a promotor, a salesman so that you can get the sponsors?

WH:

Is it more of a team effort or is it something that one person can do?

SS:

I am on my fourth anniversary actually. I launched the money plan podcast on November 23, 2010 and I have been doing it all myself. Another misconception is that it is easy to do, but it is not easy to launch a podcast, especially by yourself.

It is such a neat medium. A podcast is completely different. A podcast is not like a blog or Facebook post, or radio show. How long does it take you to read a tweet?

WH:

10 seconds

SS:

How long does it take you to read a page or two pages of a blog post?

WH:

Couple minutes

SS:

And you’re looking at the pretty pictures and reading highlight. Do you know that more YouTube videos are successful if they are under 5 minutes? An hour long video takes a lot of time for a person to consume. With a podcast, you can consume that while doing other things which allows it to be consumed for a longer amount of time than the other mediums. Listening to a podcast will educated you more than listening to a morning (12:24) on the radio. There isn’t anything wrong with the radio but I am learning more by listening to a specific show on a specific topic.

WH:

So the medium of podcasting is completely different.

SS

It is because it is almost intimate. There are times when people come up to me and tell me they listen to me every week. This then enables us to start a conversation on the spot, or we start talking through social media if we desire to.

WH:

I am aware of two types of podcasts, one person doing the show and there is the interview style. Are there other types?

SS:

There are multiple. Podcast can be the ones you mention, as well as having a co-host or even round tables.

WH:

Let’s talk money. What are some ways we can generate some revenue?

SS:

One way we have already talked about is selling adverting on your show. The biggest name that people don’t know about that makes money from advertising dollars on the show is a guy called John Dumas. Now, I think its Alex Bloomberg he just launched a show called start up. It’s about his journey trying to sell his ideas to venture capitalist to get the funding to launch his podcasting network. He actually have (15: 32) as a sponsor and he asked them, how much you are giving me to sponsor the show. They told us and I couldn’t believe it, because it was not the norm.

This guy on start-up podcast got $6000 an episode to sponsor the show. That’s crazy. Advertising can help you get money yes, but it also promote your product and services. For a small business that is your biggest benefit. One more way to make money with your podcast is to promote affiliates. It almost like advertising but not really. If you go and use this amazon link you get a referral.

WH:

The way that you do that, you kind of make a commercial, or mention it during the podcast. They are many different ways to promote the affiliates or the advertiser.

SS:

Bring it up in conversation is the best way.

WH:

Small business owner decides to go out and do this. They decide to do it quite often. I would assume there are some step to getting started, besides the physical items to buy. What are some tips for getting started?

SS:

Getting started involves getting everything setup. Some people can get free editing software put on their PCs or Macs. Then of course, if you want to get better sound, get a microphone, this one is $60 on amazon. It is called the atr 20100, it is the darling of podcasting because it is inexpensive and durable.

Once you get past the whole equipment setup, the computer, the editing software which can record and microphone the rest is the hard work. You have to record the content, edit it, and get it to a file that you can upload to a service where people can get to it. You have to release a blog post to point people to your show as well as promote it on social media. There a lot of stuff in that middle part that you really have to know what you doing because you would either miss it or mess it up. But there is a lot of stuff in the middle that once you get that setup and you know how to use it, it’s a no brainer. It is the hard work of producing the content, day after day or week after week.

WH:

Assuming small business owner have a computer, you’re talking $100 to get started, that pretty cheap. It removes cost as an excuse to get started.

SS:

My hard cost per month to run my podcast is the hosting. The hosting on an average is $10 a month. Its $20 a month for a media hosting services that I use to put the files, so I don’t load my website up with so much data. If my show suddenly gets popular, its takes down the service, and I don’t want to crash my server. I pay $10 for web posting that my hard cost in total. There are free options out there, but I don’t consider it expensive to do it right.

WH:

You have more than one website right?

SS:

http://yesyoucanpodcasttoo.com/. I created that to encourage people. I go to financial blogger conference, and people talk to me about creating a podcast and I help them but for some reason they do not pull the trigger. So I launched the website to encourage people to launch a podcast as well as to get into rich media. I am bias though, blogs are boring to me, I want to listen and I need to know who the author is. Some sites don’t even have a picture for me to know who they are, I will develop a trust with a person who gives me a bit an information about themselves.

WH:

Where do you see podcasting in 5 years?

SS:

Obviously we are seeing it being popular in cars and it is available on most smart devices. In 5 years I see there being more video podcasting and more podcasting networks. The network would provide a variety of podcasting and people who could promote one single thing that would help with adverting piece. As soon as podcast can get to the point where it is easy as clicking a video on YouTube, the podcasting industry is going to explode.

WH:

What is your favourite podcast?

SS:

My favourite podcast is called “Stacking Benjamin’s”. The hosts name is Joe, and he goes by the name Average Joe Money. He has a co-host called OG who is a practicing financial planners. They have this great chemistry but it is not only these two guys because sometimes they have a round table discussion with 3 to 4 people. They would have a special little blurb from another blog, they would have a trivia section with his neighbour Doug as well as interviews.

WH:

What are some tips that people should do? What are some really bad podcasts you have listened to and the reasons why they were bad?

SS:

One is bad audio, whether it is audio or video podcasting audio is the most important. Get a cheap microphone, try to damping the echo around your room with pillows and blankets. Second thing is editing. I don’t like hearing hold on a minute let me find the link, you need to chop those things out. You need to make sure the content is good and that you’re not boring your audience with unnecessary chit chat. Use earbuds when communicating through hangouts for example, it dampens the sounds. Also you should do a couple of shows before you start officially prompting your business.

WH:

Tell me about the meet up you do in St. Louis?

SS:

Meetup.com is cool website where anyone can create an account and join for free. They can find places and things that people meet up do it. I met Mike Wilkerson through this medium and he invited to me to his place and I found that weird. He has an entire recording studio with editing bay and two to three employees who edit the shows. It is a complete business. I teamed with him and work there in St. Charles right off of 5^th street. Podcasting is alive and well in St. Louis, I just didn’t know it.

WH:

Do you have different topics or agendas for the meet up?

SS:

I will introduce a topic for the tonight and then we would go into Question and Answer. There are meet ups in Dallas, Cleveland, LA and Kansas City.

WH:

I appreciate you taking time to come and do the show with me. I am pretty new to podcasts but it is really interesting. This has been really great. If anyone want to get a hold of you, what is the best way to do it?

SS:

If you want to learn about me myself and I, I should not mention this I am about to rebrand and launch a new website called www.stevestewart.me. It will not be launched for a little while but you could visit me on http://moneyplansos.com or http://yesyoucanpodcasttoo.com/. There are many other ways to find me through Facebook or the meet up as well as links through the websites mentioned before.

WH:

I hope you guys enjoyed the show and navigate the rapids.