He's A Pastor And A Podcaster

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For 20 years now, Carey Green has been a pastor. Now he’s a successful podcaster and a pastor. He has a podcast company called Podcastfasttrack.com and a podcast about podcasting called Podcastification. Carey Green’s story, about how he turned his love for podcasting into a successful business, is truly a great one.

PBJ: How and why did you transition from being a pastor to being a podcaster? Carey Green: I actually began podcasting before I retired from being a pastor. I had a little bit of radio background from my college days so it seemed like a good fit at the time. I was doing a podcast at www.ChristianHomeAndFamily.com, which enabled me to share my experience as a pastor with an extended audience. That show has been on hiatus for quite a while due to the growth of my business but it is my desire to get back to it sometime in the near future.

PBJ: What is your podcast about? Carey Green: I currently have two active podcasts and am working on a third…

At the same time I was launching the business I thought it would be a good idea to create my own podcast about podcasting that highlighted my experiences with clients and industry stuff. So Podcastification was born.

I also currently publish a 5-minute daily show – Morning Mindset Daily Christian Devotional. It’s a daily episode offering encouragement and mindset help from the scriptures.

PBJ: As a podcaster with a show about podcasting, what makes you stand out or be better than the others in the space now? Carey Green: For Podcastification, most of what I share is best-practices and lessons-learned from working with hundreds of clients. I’m experiencing what normal podcasters do day-to-day only 10 to 20 times over, since I work with so many clients. I get to experience their problems and frustrations from a consultant perspective and offer solutions based on my own experience and what I’ve seen other clients do to overcome their challenges. The practical aspects of what I experience helps me see the real needs of my audience.

PBJ: How do you market it? Carey Green: Mainly word of mouth, though I do make it known when new episodes come out via social media. My philosophy about shows like mine is that my main job is to provide the best content I can, serve my audience well, and ask them to tell others. So far, it’s worked pretty well. I’m happy with slow, steady audience growth.

PBJ: How many downloads and listens are you getting? Carey Green: Downloads are all I really know. Whether the person who downloads actually listens is one of the mysteries of the podcasting universe! Currently, after 30 days, my average downloads for Podcastification hover right around the 140 mark. For the Morning Mindset show it’s been much higher – around the 3,200 mark.

PBJ: Specifically how are you making money? Carey Green: All the revenue that comes into my company is for the provision of podcast services of varying types. We serve over 40 monthly subscription clients with high quality audio production, SEO optimized show notes, episodic artwork, episodic lead magnet creation, pro voice-over and custom music launch and ongoing consulting, and our “How To Podcast Step By Step” DIY course ($99).

It’s fun to help people put great messages out into the world and get the time back they used to spend in podcast-related administrative and creative tasks.

PBJ: Specifically how did you turn your podcasting business into a money-making business? Carey Green: Serve people well. I know it sounds cliche, but it’s true. When I first started I had one or two clients who appreciated the level of quality I was providing and the time I was saving them. They pointed me to others who could use my help. Within six months I was serving enough clients every month that I had to bring my adult son in on the business to help (he’s a great audio editor).

After that, we focused on providing quality work that is customized to each client. There are no cookie-cutter pricing models in our approach. We start with a baseline price and then add or subtract based on exactly what our customer wants.

Do they want less of this and more of that? Done. Do they want to do something a little bit outside the box? OK, let’s work with it to see how we can follow best-practices and make it as successful as possible. Do they publish two episodes a month instead of four? OK, we can do that. We’ve seen great results and have clients who have been with us from the beginning of the business as a result.

But more than anything we work hard to truly care about our clients – and to communicate it in every interaction. I believe that people are more important than things (even revenue) so I want them to know that each time they experience a touch-point with my team.

PBJ: Who are some of the clients you work with? Carey Green: Some of our better-known clients are Roger Whitney (The Retirement Answer Man), Nick Loper, (The Side Hustle Show), Tony Grebmeier (Be Fulfilled), and Stacey Higginbotham, (The Internet of Things Podcast). But all our clients – and testimonials from many – can be seen at https://PodcastFastTrack.com/clients.

PBJ: What were your biggest challenges and how did you overcome them? Carey Green: Early on, the biggest challenges were around building reliable systems and procedures that ensure we are not missing any steps in our production process. I lost a number of significant clients in those early days because I wasn’t paying enough attention to details and didn’t have systems in place to help me do so.

It’s vital that clients know that the product they receive is going to be flawless and like they ordered. Systems are what enable us to do that every time. We miss the mark sometimes because we are human, but when we do it’s because one of the human beings involved in the production process has either misunderstood or misinterpreted their instructions, or has not followed our procedure to a “T.” Today, we have most things systematized very well and the team is clear that our customer care and adherence to time-tested systems is what provides the quality we are after.

One of the biggest ongoing challenges is building a team of professional people who care about our clients as much as I do – and doing it in a way that compensates them well. As we all know, most podcasters can’t afford huge expenses related to their shows, so finding the balanced price point that provides them much more value than what they are paying for, and still being able to pay the team well, is difficult.

Related to that is the task of getting myself out of the day-to-day client work so that I can work on the quality and growth of the business. There have been a number of times where, due to the nature of podcasting, we’ve had a handful of clients quit podcasting altogether, take a break, etc. all at once. In times like that I often have to step back into the workflow to help make the margins we need to keep things running well and to provide for the team. It’s a tough balance.

PBJ: What advice do you have for other podcasters considering launching one of their own? Carey Green: Podcasting is easy from a tech standpoint. It really is. Don’t spend lots of time on equipment-related decisions. Go with simple and stick with it until you get your feet under you and know what you’re doing. To this day I use a microphone that cost less than $100 and a USB connection into Audacity for most things.

Listen and learn from those who have been podcasting for a long time. Dave Jackson at The School of Podcasting is one of the best. So is Daniel J. Lewis (The Audacity To Podcast). I’d be happy to help as well.

But the ease of podcasting makes for a bigger problem…

It means that anyone can create a podcast if they really want to. That’s both good and bad. It means there are a lot of people out there adding to the noise, not providing valuable content. That makes it harder for your show, no matter your niche or topic, to stand out and get the attention it might deserve.

The solution: Create truly great content. Not content that your mother or grandmother thinks is great, content that your clearly-identified AUDIENCE says is great. You’ve got to constantly be raising the bar for yourself. Do your homework, know what you’re talking about from both an experiential and factual standpoint, serve your audience well. Over time it will yield amazing results.

That brings me to the final thing I’d tell them: Be patient. Podcasting success is a long game. It may happen quickly, but don’t count on it. Serve your audience well over the long haul and you’ll succeed.

PBJ: What equipment are you using? Carey Green: I still use the ATR2005 that I started with. My mic is connected directly to my computer via USB for most situations. I either use Audacity or Hindenburg for my editing/production – it depends on the project or episode I’m working on. To me, simple is better in most cases. For more demanding audio, like narrative interviews or dramatic productions, the more powerful software like Hindenburg is a must.

Where and how you can find Carey:

Where and how you can find Carey:

carey@PodcastFastTrack.com The show’s website: https://www.PodcastFastTrack.com/listen The show’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PodcastFastTrack The show’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/PodcastFast The show’s on Apple Podcast: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/podcastification-fun-podcasting/id999802464 The show’s on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/37mwgax1FzRRXklcjoHPaa?si=HsSpLkMtQoOcy6QRQBh0Jg The show’s on iHeart Radio: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/263-podcastification-po-27905206/ The show’s on Stitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/podcastification The show’s rss feed: http://podcastification.com/rss

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