Five Monetization Strategies as a Content Creator with Joe Casabona of How I Built It

Yong-Soo Chung [00:00:00]

Joe Casabona is such a bright presence, he immediately lights up any room he occupies and I'm not exaggerating but everything about him just puts a smile on your face!

Joe Casabona [00:00:13]

Yeah, oh, thank you very much. That's not... I like that a lot.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:00:21]

Oh, and did you know, Joe used to be a pretty good actor back in the day...

Joe Casabona [00:00:24]

I was in a rock opera version of Alice in Wonderland in high school where I played Tweedle Dee. And we did a like slipknot version of the walrus and the carpenter. And so like I have the real deep, like death metal, like screamo voice. Uh, and the reason we did that is cause I can't actually, I'm a good actor, but I can't actually sing. So we needed to find ways around that to get me to sing. Cause this was like pre auto tune.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:00:52]

Wait, are you thinking what I'm thinking? Yup, absolutely! I'm gonna HAVE to make Joe sing!!

Joe Casabona [00:00:57]

I don't think I've done that I have not done that in like 20 years!

Yong-Soo Chung [00:01:03]

But hold on a second, I'm getting WAY ahead of myself here.

In case you don't know Joe, there are two things you HAVE to know about him.

One, he’s the host of an amazing podcast called "How I Built It.” I was on episode 333 and you can listen to it right here from the First Class Founders feed, just before this episode.

And two, thirty minutes from now, you are gonna leave with some incredible AND actionable advice on EIGHT different ways to monetize your content, thanks in no small part to Joe's incredible S.M.A.S.H. framework.

Interested? Well, call for your favorite beverage and get ready for an amazing thirty minutes with a guy who is absolutely NOT your average-Joe!

Yong-Soo Chung [00:01:49]

The next generation of successful founders in this digital age of entrepreneurship will leverage their audience to launch, build, and scale their brands. First Class Founders explores this golden intersection of audience-building & company-building with proven strategies to grow both your audience, which is your distribution, and your brand, which is your product.

Because those who can master both will create a category of one.

Hi, my name is Yong-Soo Chung and I'm a serial entrepreneur who bootstrapped 3 successful businesses from $0 to $20 million over 8 years.

On this podcast, you'll learn timeless lessons from world-class content creators, startup founders, and CEOs. You'll also hear tactical tips & strategies from ME, Yong-Soo Chung!

Are you ready? Then, let’s begin!

The wonderful and ever-smiling Joe Casabona is my CO-PILOT for today's episode of First Class Founders!

Joe Casabona [00:02:48]

Thanks so much for having me. I'm excited. I've been listening for a while. I'm really excited to be on the show.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:02:53]

I recently came across Joe's excellent podcast "How I Built It" and found out about his S.M.A.S.H. framework for monetizing your content. So, I invited him to join me on this First Class Founders flight and I am incredibly excited that he agreed to join us and share his wisdom!

Joe Casabona [00:03:08]

Hi. I'm Joe Casaubona, and I help busy solopreneurs and creators improve their processes so that they spend less time on the parts of their podcast that they don't need to do so they could focus on what they wanna spend their time on, whether it's more time with the business, hobbies, or their family.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:04:45]

Before we begin, we teamed up with HyperPods to bring to you a quick 3-min hyper-visual summary of this episode with Clifton Sellers on personal brand building to help you consume faster, understand better, and retain more key ideas and insights.

Grab the hyper-visual summary for this week’s episode at firstclassfounders.com/hypervisuals.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:03:25]

On this episode of First Class Founders, Joe is gonna share with us various secrets he has learned from the guests on "How I Built It". Over the next thirty minutes or so, Joe and I will guide you on how to build and monetize an audience for your content.

First, we will hear from Joe the audience-building strategy that he learned from 90s TV shows - particularly F.R.I.E.N.D.S., Mad About You starring Helen Hunt, and E.R. starring George Clooney.

Then, we're gonna spend a lot of time discussing the FIVE monetization strategies outlined in Joe's S.M.A.S.H. framework.

And, finally, we'll hear Joe's advice for new podcasters, in which he shared a superb mission statement template for podcasting. This template, when applied correctly, can be implemented for ALL types of content and not JUST podcasts!

But, you'll have to be patient and wait because, before I can share this template with you, I need to set the stage first. And I promise, you are gonna enjoy every moment of this journey with Joe and me!

So, jet-setters, buckle up and get ready to take-off!

Joe Casabona [00:04:28]

Hi, I'm Joe Casabona. Let's get down to business.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:04:35]

Before we begin, we teamed up with HyperPods to bring to you a quick 3-min hyper-visual summary of this episode with Joe Casabona on monetization strategies for creators to help you consume faster, understand better, and retain more key ideas and insights.

You can grab the hyper-visual summary for this week’s episode absolutely free at firstclassfounders.com/hypervisuals.

First things first, I wanna start by giving back to you that which I so cruelly denied a few minutes ago...

Remember when Joe said he played Tweedle-Dee in a rock-opera version of "Alice in Wonderland"? I obviously pressed him for details...

Joe Casabona [00:05:14]

So we sang Walrus and the Carpenter to the tune of Hitchin' a Ride by Green Day. So, but I did it like Screamo.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:05:21]

...and asked him to give us a taste. Guess what, he AGREED!

Joe Casabona [00:05:25]

.So let me bring those lyrics up really quick.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:05:29]

Ladies and gentlemen, here's Joe Casabona as Tweedle-Dee in a rock-opera version of "Alice in Wonderland" performing a few bars of "Walrus and the Carpenter"! Take it away, Joe!

Joe Casabona [00:05:40]

Hey, mister wizard, I hate movies.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:05:45]

But let's not get too sidetracked here. The reason I invited Joe was to ask him about a smash framework, but we began with a casual discussion about building an audience for your podcast.

Joe Casabona [00:05:55]

Yeah. I think it's tough because I think there's the stuff that people wished work, myself included, and then there's the stuff that actually works.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:06:03]

Stuff that people wished worked, and stuff that actually works. Joe gave the example of his college bulletin board.

Joe Casabona [00:06:11]

When I was in college, I was part of the programming board, which programming in that context meant planning. And one of the things that we would do every time is make posters for our event that we would hang in basically the same spots on campus. And if you've seen those bulletin boards with lots of posters, you'll probably not be able to think of one thing that you saw on the board you just walked by, right? There's, it's just like a lot of information and unless you explicitly stop to read those, you're probably not going to remember that there's an event in the Wolves Den at 7 p.m. on Friday.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:06:50]

Quick sidebar here, Joe went to the University of Scranton and their mascot is a wolf, so the university uses the wolf motif everywhere.

But, more importantly, what Joe's trying to say is that the digital equivalent of that college bulletin board is what we now experience as Twitter. Or X.

Most creators will do exactly what all those clubs did with that bulletin board...

Joe Casabona [00:07:11]

You want to just post, Hey, listen to my episode on Twitter or LinkedIn or Facebook or whatever, and hope that it drives traffic. But there's a couple of things, right? First of all, you're asking people to click away, which most social platforms don't like, they want you to stay there. Also, if people are just scrolling Twitter, right, maybe they click, but they're certainly not going to listen right then and there, right?

Yong-Soo Chung [00:07:36]

Yup. People who are on a particular platform will rarely swipe away to a different platform. But don't take that to mean you shouldn't post at all!

Remember, there is stuff that people WISHED worked. And there's stuff that ACTUALLY works...

Joe Casabona [00:07:50]

What actually works, and honestly, Yong-Soo, you probably know better than, I mean, you've done it very effectively. You have a huge twitter following so you like you know how to build the following is you want to use those platforms to attract an audience to you and then maybe eventually right get them on your mailing list, right. It's the reason we hung those posters all over campus is because hopefully throughout the course of the week, someone sees the poster enough that it finally registers for them. And so the social platforms are for you to show up and provide value on that platform.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:08:35]

The lesson here? Don't expect your audience to swipe away from the platform they are on and consume your content immediately. Instead, provide them value on the platform they are CURRENTLY on.

But then, how DO you get users to listen to podcasts?

To answer that, Joe borrowed some important learnings from one of my favorite 90s TV shows - F.R.I.E.N.D.S.

Joe Casabona [00:08:55]

Friends was pulling in 16, 17 million views per episode, they aired on Thursdays, it was like NBC's legendary Thursday night lineup.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:09:05]

By the way, back in the 90s, there was no streaming. You had to wait for your favorite TV show to come on air and most shows would air one episode a week...

Joe Casabona [00:09:14]

...and something that friends did halfway through their season, right? is they had two episodes called The One with Two Parts. And they did, these were crossover episodes. So in the first of that series, they had the cast from Mad About You, including Helen Hunt, which was also based in New York City. Mad About You led into Friends. So like Mad About You might've been on at eight, Friends was on at 8.30, that sort of thing. So people who were already watching Mad About You, got a taste of the characters they liked on Friends, and started watching Friends. The second part of that episode, the part two of the one with two parts, had George Clooney and Noah Weil from ER on the show. Friends led into ER.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:10:02]

Here's the thing. The audiences for the three shows Joe mentioned - "Mad About You", F.R.I.E.N.D.S, and ER - were actually quite similar. But, most people, being creatures of habit, probably weren't watching "that new show with six unknown actors living in New York".

That's why F.R.I.E.N.D.S. chose to do a crossover with the two shows around them in the hopes that the audience would stay on NBC and NOT switch the channel.

Joe Casabona [00:10:26]

So after that, they were pulling in 25, 26, 27 million views per episode. That's like a 20 something, I did the math on a blog post I wrote, it's like a 21 or 24% increase because they found lookalike audiences and got the show in front of those people.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:10:46]

Lookalike audiences. If you remember, back in episode 44, newsletter growth expert Matt McGarry stressed the importance of lookalike audiences for promoting your newsletter.

What Joe and Matt are both recommending is the same thing - you need to find lookalike audiences and get in front of them if you want to grow YOUR audience.

Joe Casabona [00:11:04]

That's what you need to do with your podcast. So so guests on podcasts similar to yours or who have the same audience do podcast swaps with people because those people are listening in a podcast app. And so it's a lot easier for them to go, oh, I'll just subscribe to this show and then it'll be in my queue versus, oh, now I'm on a website. I was just on Twitter. Now I need to figure out how I'm gonna listen to this. Right?

Yong-Soo Chung [00:11:28]

So, two important lessons in audience-building for you there, courtesy of Joe.

1. Don't expect your audience to drop everything and come to you.
2. Get in front of your audience by appearing in or around other content made for that audience.

Now, suppose you implement these two lessons for your content and acquire your audience. Suppose everything is chugging along smoothly. Suppose you determine that the time is ripe for monetizing your audience.

The obvious next question is… what's the best way to do it?

And the answer is Joe's S.M.A.S.H framework.

I got Joe to dive into it in pretty great detail but before I share them with you, let me quickly say thanks to my sponsor for this episode Castmagic.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:12:15]

Here's the tool every creator and founder should be using to build their content engine... I even used it for this exact episode you’re listening to right now.

Those excerpts, takeaways, and summaries that you see on the show notes for this episode?

Yeah, those are pulled directly from Castmagic. 

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And to make this an absolute no-brainer, listeners of First Class Founders can take 30% off for the first 3 months of your Castmagic subscription by using code Founders30. Again, I’ll put the link in the show notes and don’t forget to use code Founders30.

And now, let's get back to our episode with podcaster and workflow-expert Joe Casabona and get straight into his S.M.A.S.H. framework.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:13:35]

The S.M.A.S.H. framework is an acronym for the five types of monetization strategies that content creators can implement to monetize their projects.

Joe Casabona [00:13:55]

I came up with this based on the things that I was already telling people how to monetize. It's called the Smash Framework, which super, like really works, right? Because like you want to like smash those profits or whatever.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:14:07]

S.M.A.S.H. stands for Sponsorship, Memberships, Affiliates, Selling, and Helping.

Let's dive into each one of these in detail right away...

First up is S for Sponsorships.

Joe Casabona [00:14:18]

This is the one that everybody thinks of when they think of podcasts. A brand pays you to mention them on your show.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:14:25]

A recent report by Edison Research found that 51% of Podcast "Super Listeners" - that is, Americans older than 18 years of age, who listen to five or more hours of podcasts weekly - agree that they pay more attention to ads on podcasts than on other media.

That means every second "super listener" of this podcast definitely knows who is sponsoring this podcast!

Joe Casabona [00:14:48]

And the reason that this is really effective for podcasters is the audience likely has developed a stronger bond between the host, between them and the host than they would for like a TV or radio ad. Right. Especially if the ad is host-read. This is really important. Right? Because, again, they trust you.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:15:12]

And, never forget, your audience's trust is the MOST important thing as a creator.

Joe Casabona [00:15:17]

The worst thing that you can do as a podcaster is continually erode the trust between you and your listeners.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:15:26]

Joe gave the example of "Entrepreneurs on Fire" by John Lee Dumas, a podcast he used to follow quite religiously.

Joe Casabona [00:15:33]

But something that really eroded my trust in him is when I found out he charged guests to come on his show. I think you're just double dipping there, right?

Yong-Soo Chung [00:15:43]

Sponsorships, Joe says, should always be win-win-win.

Joe Casabona [00:15:49]

You want it to be a win for you as the content creator. You want it to be a win for the brand. You also want it to be a win for the audience and not enough people think about that. So I've turned down sponsors because I didn't think they aligned with my audience or they wanted me to do the ad read in such a way that didn't make it obviously an ad read. Don't say it's an ad. Make it part of the natural conversation. No. I'm going to always... I don't have to say this episode is brought to you by brand, but it has to be super clear at some point that this is an ad, right?

Yong-Soo Chung [00:16:28]

My respect for Joe went up a couple of notches here because turning down sponsors is a difficult call. I mean, you are practically leaving money on the table.

But, Joe explained that there WAS a way to work WITH the sponsors and ensure a 'win-win-win' situation for everybody involved in this scenario, without having to compromise on your ethics and morals.

Joe Casabona [00:16:47]

...my voice changes when I do an ad read. Right. So even if it if I don't start with that sentence, if I say, you know, the other day, we're in the middle of the summer here and I was doing a lot of walking one day and I was starting to get really sweaty because my t-shirt was made of really heavy cotton. That's why I like blah blah, right? It becomes really clear that it's an ad at that point, right? Even if I don't explicitly state it. And so then at the end of that read, I'll say thanks to blah for sponsoring the show. So those are the kind of things you want to be cognizant of. Is this a win for your audience, right? Does this product solve a problem that they have?

Yong-Soo Chung [00:17:30]

And, that's S for Sponsorships.

Next is M for Memberships.

Joe Casabona [00:17:36]

And this is where you offer premium content to people who pay you a little extra. This is, again, both of our shows have this. What I tell people for this is, you want, you don't need a big audience, but you need a loyal audience, people who are or really love your content or conversely really hate ads. Like I know people who pay for my show just because they hate ads. But the value proposition for them is that you're providing them with a little extra. Yong-soo, I think you do a really effective job of this, to be honest, on your podcast, where you tease a little bit. You put the, you basically say like, this is the point where we talk about X. I'll share a little bit, but if you want the full thing, go sign up. Right. Um, I think that's really effective.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:18:18]

What Joe is referring to is the EXTRA segment I specially craft for the premium members of the First Class Founders' community. For this episode, for example, the premium members will be listening to Joe and I discuss THREE alternative monetization ideas that are BEYOND Joe's extensively well-designed S.M.A.S.H. framework.

And you know what I'm going to say here - if you want to hear these thoughts, become a premium member by going to firstclassfounders.com/join - I'll leave a link in the show-notes!

But, coming back to the discussion it doesn't HAVE to be extra content. It can simply be ad-free versions of the episode - like Joe does on his podcast, for example.

Joe Casabona [00:18:54]

...and the thing that I would tell people, right, is you want You want it to be low effort for you, but high value for the listener. So like, you don't want to say like, you're going to get a bonus episode every day. That's so much work. Early access. That's another as long as you're not like under the gun the whole time. Right. That's a pretty easy thing to do. Release it a day earlier or five days earlier.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:19:19]

After M for Memberships, comes A for Affiliates.

Joe Casabona [00:19:23]

That's when you leverage affiliate links to get a commission, um, on products you recommend. If you're going to do the, this is the lowest barrier for entry. But if you're going to do it, you've got to like really do it.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:19:37]

What Joe's trying to say here is that affiliate programs cannot exist in a vacuum - YOU will need to put in some amount of effort too. Which is why you need to pick affiliate programs that offer a good payout.

Joe Casabona [00:19:47]

Amazon, terrible, right? Worse in the last few years. In 2021, I made like five thousand dollars off Amazon. And last year I made nine hundred dollars off Amazon. Like the changes they've made have led to a dramatic decrease for a lot of people. But like I can't speak for Beehiiv, but ConvertKit's very generous. It's 30% recurring for two years.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:20:09]

Beehiiv, the service provider I use for my newsletter, pays out 50% of revenue to its partners. If you are looking to start a newsletter, and have decided on Beehiiv, would you click on my affiliate link in the show notes please?

Basically, to sum up A for Affiliates in the S.M.A.S.H. framework...

Joe Casabona [00:20:25]

The strategy here would be pick two or three good affiliate programs that really align with your audience and mention them almost every episode, anytime it's relevant.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:20:37]

If you have been listening carefully, you will have noticed a crucial design flaw in the affiliate model. Which is that businesses that rely on affiliate income are essentially built on rented land. Joe's solution to this is to pick affiliate programs that, a, pay REALLY well and, b, typically have long-term customers.

Like web hosting, for example.

Joe Casabona [00:20:56]

Website hosting companies have a ton of money. They also have a very generous affiliate program. where they usually pay two to three times an annual subscription, right? Or an annual fee, right? So if they charge a hundred bucks a year, your affiliate payout might be 200 bucks because they know the minimum lifetime value of their customer is three years. People aren't going to switch hosts right after they just switched hosts. So I make videos highlighting features. who would use this host and because they're so generous and I put a video out and their YouTube is long tailed land, just like long term content, long tail content land. Those videos I made a couple of years ago still do super well for me. I'll get a little email every day. Hey, you just made 400 bucks. Cool. I didn't do anything.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:21:49]

I think the same reasoning can be used to explain why so many YouTubers are sponsored by VPN companies!

Also, an excellent example of someone who made it big using the affiliate model of monetization is Matt Giovanisci of Swim University. He has, in recent days, diversified his business model but a large chunk of SwimU was built using the affiliate model of monetization. Check out episode 31 of this podcast if you want to know more!

And to bring it full circle, I use the affiliate model of monetization for Humphrey, our celebrity French bulldog. When we do brand sponsorship deals, often we negotiate an affiliate commission for each sale. Of course, we also have our own shop at SpottedByHumphrey.com, which is another monetization strategy. 

Speaking of Spotted By Humphrey, did you know that all orders on Spotted By Humphrey are shipped out by my other business, GrowthJet?

Hold on, let me quickly introduce you to what GrowthJet does and how it can benefit YOU as an entrepreneur!

Yong-Soo Chung [00:22:49]

E-commerce fulfillment is a pain. One time, one of my customers emailed me asking me why we had shipped them an empty box. It turns out the 3PL had stolen the $1,000 product and shipped an empty box to my customer. Yeah, that was not fun.


So, I launched GrowthJet, a Climate-Neutral Certified third-party logistics company for e-commerce brands.

We can pick, pack, and ship your orders from our warehouse in Brisbane, California While having direct access to our team on-site, we take great pride in our customer experience. Just ask our current partners. They absolutely love us.

GrowthJet is the 3PL that I wish I had when I launched my own brand, Urban EDC.
If you have an e-commerce shop, check out GrowthJet and hit me up!

Alright, let's get back to our episode with Joe Casabona and continue from where we left off with Joe's S.M.A.S.H. framework.

Before that short digression about GrowthJet, we looked at S, M, and A of the S.M.A.S.H. framework - that is, S for Sponsorships, M for Memberships, and A for Affiliates.

Now, let's move on to the second S of the S.M.A.S.H. framework, which is S for Selling.

Joe Casabona [00:24:18]

This is where you sell your own products or services. And so you're positioning your podcast as a way to showcase your authority and expertise.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:24:29]

If you visit firstclassfounders.com in your browser and look at the various links in the header, you'll notice a link titled, "Work With Me". As a serial entrepreneur who has started 3 businesses in 8 years that have earned $20 million in revenue, I am only too happy to share my learnings with whoever wants it.

But, if you are good at something, never do it for free, they say. So, I'm selling it.

Joe Casabona [00:24:50]

I would caution against having sponsors if you're going to do this just because you send mixed messages. I mean, that's a mistake that I've made in the past. Right. And so you want to be super clear about what you're selling.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:25:04]

That makes total sense. One of the absolutely unimpeachable rules of selling is that you only sell ONE thing at a time. So, if I have a sponsor on the show, I am NOT going to talk about my coaching and consulting services - that's too many calls-to-action, which is just going to end up confusing my audience.

But, to my amazement, Joe outlined a way to make that happen, and gave the example of Ramit Sethi to underline his point!

Joe Casabona [00:25:28]

I think Ramit Sethi does this really effectively on his podcast, where he'll have a couple of short coaching calls, um, and combine them. And each discrete segment kind of has its own call to action. Right. Uh, this couple came to me because they were fighting over the interest rate for their house. And I talked to them and then he, like, he releases that audio and then he says, if you want my five point framework for whether you should buy a house or rent, uh, you can find it over here.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:26:02]

Did you catch the KEY element in this structure? Here, let me point it out to you...

Joe Casabona [00:26:07]

And each discrete segment kind of has its own call to action.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:26:13]

Each discrete segment has its own call to action. Or, put it another way, Ramit Sethi is quote-unquote "selling" a different product - either his own or that of a sponsor - in each segment.

Not gonna lie, this is an incredibly tight rope to walk on, but if you do it carefully, you can actually combine both S for Sponsorship and S for Selling in the same episode.

Joe Casabona [00:26:36]

..if you have a segmented show where, uh, maybe you offer some basic advice in the beginning, right? Um, uh, what's the best way for me to grow my podcast, right? Maybe I give you five tips for podcast swaps. Uh, then I say, um, okay, now let's take a break and hear from our sponsors. Right. There's a discrete segment. When we get back, I'm actually going to give you audio of a coaching call where I help a podcaster through doing effective podcast swaps, getting their call to action done right. Getting a landing page ready. Things like that. When we, when we get back sponsor read, then the coaching call. Now at the end of the coaching call, you could say, if you want advice, just like this, you can head over to joecasabona.com/coaching. And you can get your own coaching call and you'll get a 50 percent discount if you let me release the audio on this podcast, too. Right. So now you're not really sending mixed messages because you've compartmentalized these things a little bit.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:27:39]

...and that right there, in a nutshell, is how you do mixed CTAs in a single episode - compartmentalization!

Joe Casabona [00:27:46]

So the first segment is, essentially this great content is brought to you by these sponsors. And the second segment is, I'm able to do this content because I was explicitly paid for it through my services. It's almost like a subliminal thing where it draws a clear boundary between the two. And this is really good for, like, people who have online courses, people who sell coaching, which is why the H is closely related.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:28:16]

The H, of course, is the last bit of the S.M.A.S.H. framework and it stands for Helping.

Joe Casabona [00:28:21]

If you help people, a podcast can be a great way to get people to know, like, and trust you faster. So this is great for coaches. Maybe you publish a couple of coaching calls on your podcast. Now you're actually showing people that you can do what you claim to do. If you sell online courses, you can workshop that course content on the episode. Right. You can even give away some of it because the way you present it on a podcast will be different from the way you present it in the course.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:28:53]

In case you are wondering, how the H for Helping differs from S for Selling, it's because 'selling' is usually a clear 'purchase' involving either a tangible good or service. Whereas, 'helping' typically involves workshopping something together with your audience and releasing that as free content, which often can lead to more sales, as Joe just described...

Joe Casabona [00:29:12]

So there's a lot of opportunity there to put out the actual educational content or the helpful content that you usually monetize as a freebie to help people to get to trust you more and then buy into your authority and expertise.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:29:30]

And that is the entirety of Joe's S.M.A.S.H. framework - S for Sponsorships, M for memberships, A for Affiliates, the second S for Selling, and finally, H for Helping others.

Each of these monetization techniques can be applied to your content, regardless of what format your content is in - be it newsletters, podcasts, videos, or a format that is yet to be discovered.

You want to focus entirely on creating content? Great, sell sponsorships! You want to build a tribe of people invested in you and your product? Offer memberships! Are you comfortable being a salesperson for another product? Maybe affiliates is the way to go! You have physical goods that you want to sell - yeah, create content explicitly designed to move your inventory, like I do with UrbanEDC and SpottedByHumphrey! You have a knack for helping people? I'm sure people would be happy to pay you for your coaching and consulting!

The S.M.A.S.H. framework gives you the tools. It is up to you to use them to your advantage.

Oh, by the way, the S.M.A.S.H. framework isn't an exhaustive list.

Yeah, you heard me right. The S.M.A.S.H. framework is a list of five of the simplest monetization methods - ideas that are super simple to understand and implement for even the least-experienced of creators.

There are several OTHER methods of monetization BEYOND the S.M.A.S.H. framework, which I asked Joe about and he happily shared his thoughts about each one of them…but those will be made available exclusively to the premium members of the First Class Founders community. Here, let me give you a sneak preview of what's in store for you if you become a premium member...

Joe Casabona [00:30:59]

I don't wanna make it sound like gambling. It's a little bit like gambling, I guess, because you're betting on companies.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:31:05]

Want to become a premium member? Go to firstclassfounders.com/join.

Finally, before we wrapped up, I asked Joe if he had any advice for new podcast creators who were venturing into this business.

The first bit of advice was to develop a solid mission statement for your podcast. And Joe even provided a template to easily write a solid mission statement for your podcast

Joe Casabona [00:31:23]

78% of people listen to a podcast to learn something new. So if you are in the creator space and you're trying to make a business out of being a creator, you want people who are going to derive value from your content, right? There are obviously people out there, podcast networks out there who make a lot of money from fictional shows or true crime shows. And they are basically in the entertainment business. Right. For most small creators, like we want to create entertaining content, but we are not in the entertainment business, so we need to take a different approach. So I would say if you are thinking about starting a podcast today, you want to define your podcast's mission statement. And I would word it this way. My podcast helps specific type of people solve specific problem by the goal of each episode. So you want that you want to take that template and fill in the blanks. My podcast helps busy solopreneurs and creators improve their processes through automation by showing them automation ideas every episode.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:32:38]

That's just brilliant!

Let's try doing it for First Class Founders - "My podcast helps entrepreneurs and founders grow both their audience and their product by providing them with audience-building and product-building ideas in each episode." - that sounds great to me!

The second bit of advice Joe had was to regularly put out solo episodes because they help build your authority as a subject-matter expert.

Joe Casabona [00:33:02]

So it's you showing people you know your stuff. Maybe you break down an automation every episode. Hey, I have this is my real story, right? I have three podcasts. I have three kids. My wife's a nurse, so she works three day, 12 hour shifts. Really hard to run a business that way if you don't have the right processes in place. And so I can talk about my experience trying to do that. I could talk about the automations I built that allow me to go pick up my kids after school.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:33:38]

The final bit of advice Joe gave was to PLAN for monetization BEFORE starting the podcast.

Joe Casabona [00:33:42]

...you want to start thinking about monetization before you launch. This is another mistake podcasters make. I'll launch and I'll figure out how it'll make money later. That's kind of like saying, we'll build the house and then we'll figure out where to put the toilets. You need to run pipes first so that when you're ready to put in the toilet, you know where it goes.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:34:01]

Okay, that's a strange but powerful analogy that I am absolutely sure you won’t forget!

Before we wrap up the episode, here's a quick recap of the EIGHT different monetization strategies Joe and I discussed.

S for Sponsorships
M for Memberships
A for Affiliates
S for Selling
H for Helping others

...which, together, Joe has named the S.M.A.S.H. framework. And then we also discussed three alternative strategies, which we covered inside the premium segment of First Class Founders.

You can contact Joe Casabona through his website.

Joe Casabona [00:34:36]

…you can head over to podcastliftoff.com slash first, like first class founders, and there will be some free resources for you there. A copy of my Smash framework, you'll get on my mailing list, and there will be links to all of my social profiles like Twitter slash X or whatever it might be named by the time this episode comes out.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:34:56]

Well, as of today, the 10th of October 2023, it's still named X.

Speaking of X, if you liked this episode about monetization strategies but you are still working your way towards growing your audience, I recommend checking out episode 36 with Clint Murphy titled, "Secret Recipe for a Successful Content Creator: 7 Key Lessons with Clint Murphy".

Clint grew his audience from 0 to over 300k followers in 2 years. Clint is an expert at audience growth and lucky for you, he revealed all of his secrets in a masterclass on personal brand growth. That’s episode 36 in case you want to check it out next.

Yong-Soo Chung [00:35:37]

Alright, that wraps up today's show!

In the next episode of First Class Founders, I’m revealing the 5 growth levers that every digital business needs to think about. And this is exactly how I grew my newsletter to 10,000 subscribers in just 9 months. I’ll explain what those 5 growth levers are and how I used each one to accelerate my newsletter! Don’t miss out on this one.

If you're a new listener and you enjoyed this episode, you can add YOUR voice to the show by leaving me a message on firstclassfounders.com. You can also follow the show by going to FirstClassFounders.com and clicking on the link that matches your preferred podcast player - like Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And, if you wanna connect with me specifically, hit me up on Twitter-slash-X @YongSooChung. I’m still pretty active there! Or , connect with me on one of my other social accounts, listed in the show notes.

One last thing before I go, could you head over to FirstClassFounders.com/review and leave the podcast a five-star review please? A five-star review helps bump the show up in podcast rankings, which helps me get bigger and better guests! I’ll leave a link in the show notes to leave us a 5-star review. Thanks a lot, in advance!

I'll see you on the next episode of First Class Founders.