the podjournal

I have thought about it a lot lately, and the other day I found out, that I have fellow-sufferers. I don´t like the way a lot of americans use podcasting to “hard sell” their services about almost anything, including their little packages of stuff they can wrap up and make a profit from, because they are podcasting and have gain some fame.

I joined a roundtable with other podcasting-consultants and -producers from Europe. Leesa Barnes - canadian podcasting expert (yes just look her up in Google) is writing a book about podcasting for profit and is analyzing all the aspects of how one can make money in this “industri”. Cause podcasting has become an industri, but how and on what, that is interesting to watch, and when are podcasters, in my view, going a little too far - too often I think.

I remember Leesas session at the EXPO in Ontario last year about “The Seven deadly Sins in podcasting”. One of the sins is “greed”, and I myself try to always try to give people value, before I charge for my services as a podcasting consultant.

Leesa describes the 3 ways of making profit, and in her book she will elaborate more on the different ways. Therefore the roundtable.

She invited us to the Skype-conference, and boy did some of us utter how we don´t like the selling in podcasts and podcasting.

Ofcourse there must be a ROI, return of investment, for businesses when they use just another marketing tool. But why podcasters, who have gained popularity and visibility in the community and beyond, have to sell so hard as they do in webinars (salespitches), and newsletters (salespitches) and emails (that I cannot even recall I have signed up for, and that are just sales pitches. At least I have not signed up for this flood of sales pitches. And there are also surveys that are really just sales pitches. And so on.

Maybe people in the land of milk and honey (?) have an admiration for people, who can make a quick buck on anything. Even on how they make buchs on anything. And who cannot shut up about how much money tthey make, and how easy it would be for others to do the same, if they just buy their cd´s, their books, their products, their….. The very common affiliate-idea has always been a turn off in my country. It has this aura of scam and pyramid game to it. Can´t help it - it is our cultural differences, I guess.

One of the conclusions in the roundtable discussion was, well put by Nicole Simon, among others, was, that the Americans might, because of no language barrier, be able to widen their audience to Europa and other parts of the world. But I know, even though we have the Wrangler-jeans, the Coca-Cola, the tv-series, Oprah and Dr. Phil and what have you - don´t expect us to buy in on your way of making anything into a product to sell, whenever you get peoples attention.

Leesa Barnes blogs more about her views here, and I am sure she will include the European cultural “fellow-suffering” in her book.

A book that she will never have to “hard sell” to me - I will sign up for a copy anytime soon.

Tags: Podcasting //