Podcasting for Impact: Navigating the Journey to Success with Kevin Palmieri

Jennie Wright [00:00:03]:

Hi. This is the Acquire podcast from the Odd Phonic Podcast Network, and I’m Jenny Wright. And this is the podcast that delves deep into the world of list building and online events, and it is designed to empower entrepreneurs and marketers with the knowledge and Strategies to master these essential business growth tactics. And I have a really, really fun guest today. I’m really excited. So we have Kevin Palmeri, the visionary founder and cohost of the renowned Next Level University podcast. His journey to success has been a winding road, Initially finding success only to be awakened by a near suicide experience that led him to reassess his life’s trajectory. The pivotal moment became the catalyst for his deep dive into self improvement, propelling him to become an influential podcaster and speaker and committed to making a positive impact on others.

 

Jennie Wright [00:00:51]:

His podcast has reached soaring heights, boasting over a hun sorry, 1500 episodes and captivating listeners in more than a 160 countries. His dedication to personal and professional growth has not only elevated his life, but also resonated with a global audience. Kevin, thank you so much for being here.

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:01:09]:

Jenny, thank you so much for a wonderful introduction. I appreciate it very much. Hopefully, I can live up to the incredible words you have said about.

 

Jennie Wright [00:01:17]:

I you know, absolutely. I I have to flex, you know, that I love to write. So I have fun with these intros. I don’t I like taking somebody’s bio and just having a good time with it.

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:01:26]:

I respect it. Yes. Nothing against other podcasters. I love podcasting, obviously, but I would rather Somebody freestyle it and writes write it out, then just take what I gave them and and and sing it word for word. So I I respect you at a deeper level.

 

Jennie Wright [00:01:39]:

Thank you. I’ve actually had people take the intros that I write and put them in as their bios on their websites.

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:01:44]:

Oh, I wasn’t thinking that way, but now I now maybe I am.

 

Jennie Wright [00:01:47]:

Maybe maybe you might have to get just grab it off the transcript. Alright. So we’re gonna talk about podcasting. We’re gonna talk about list building and lead generation. You’ve done some pretty spectacular things. I love talking about list building and lead gen, so give me sort of a sense, shed some light on how podcasting has served you as a powerful tool for growing an email list.

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:02:09]:

Yeah. So for us, I never really understood the importance of having a hub. Mhmm. So any if you hear me say hub during this at all, all I mean is it’s kind of like the big lake where all the water runs from. And so for us, it’s it’s been the podcast. When you have a group of engaged individuals who Feel like you’re adding value to them. They are more likely to try to find other value that you have within your business. And for us, an easy way to grow an email list might just be have a a freebie.

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:02:41]:

The beautiful thing about having a podcast is you can create as many freebies as you want. We could do 1 a week. We could do 1 a month. We could do 1 a year, whatever it may be. And I think the the beneficial thing for us is it’s something we’ve been doing for a long enough period of time where as so you get plateaus of listeners. So Sure. In the 1st year, I think we had a 1,000 listens. Then we had 25,000 next and blah blah blah blah blah.

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:03:06]:

That’s a lot of people that you haven’t targeted yet. So what might seem like something, oh, I’ve already done this. I Shouldn’t do it again. Your audience is drastically bigger than it was at this point last year, so you can always kinda rinse and repeat the same things for a similar level of value.

 

Jennie Wright [00:03:21]:

Completely. And I know from experience that occasionally, you’ll put, like, a lead magnet on podcast 10, and then you won’t put another lead magnet on a podcast Talk about it in the actual podcast itself or in the show notes or whatnot for a long time. Not every not everybody’s going to go back and listen to number 10 Of course. Or a 100 or whatever it’s gonna be. So there’s that consistency. Do you suggest that it’s actually mentioned in, like, the intro or the outro? Do you like adding an extra, Straw, sort of like mid, you know, mid ad or anything like that. Like, how do you keep it front of mind?

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:03:56]:

So my frame with calls to action, I it’s twofold. One, it’s you’re either doing the highest probability or you’re doing the highest return on investment. So highest probability would be join our Facebook group. Because from Consumer standpoint, that is where more people are gonna go anyway.

 

Jennie Wright [00:04:15]:

It’s low friction.

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:04:16]:

Low friction. Yep. It’s it’s just it makes sense. It makes sense you listen to the podcast, but you don’t have a community yet. Oh, we have a community that we built just for you. Awesome. Go there. Mhmm.

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:04:26]:

A higher ROI Call to action might be join the email list. I like to do live reads. I am somebody who would rather just do it live because then I can connect. As an example, we have a client who is in the financial space. She’s doing Running ads towards her email list for 15 affordable gifts from the heart.

 

Jennie Wright [00:04:50]:

Okay.

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:04:50]:

That’s a really good live read. Yeah. Just you can do it. If this so I did an episode today on the 10 things that are gonna help you, get into the green this holiday season. If you find that gift giving is becoming a problem, I actually have this free download for you, 15 ways to, you know, gift give on a budget. Sure.

 

Jennie Wright [00:05:10]:

So

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:05:10]:

yeah. I’m someone who I’d really like live reads. If you’re going to do pre roll or a mid roll or a post roll, I’ll take a shot on those with something that’s higher ROI.

 

Jennie Wright [00:05:24]:

Okay.

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:05:25]:

Just because I know I’m gonna get a chance to do a live read for something at the end anyway.

 

Jennie Wright [00:05:31]:

Fair enough. Okay. I like that. So I I love the live read as well, also depending on the episode. So whatever the topic of the episode is or whatever the time of year, like you said, live read. Right? So Holiday season, you’re talking about such and such. Question on because I’m a technical person. Let’s just say you’ve got a holiday episode.

 

Jennie Wright [00:05:50]:

You’re like, hey, so and so. If you wanna get, you know, Awesome gift giving ideas go to blah blah blah.com. What do you do if that episode, like, is out 3 years later and somebody’s listening to it, You know? And that link no longer works. Like, she was like, whoopsies, or do you how do you handle that?

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:06:09]:

Well, there’s there’s a few ways you can do it. You can do, like, a Dynamic ad. So maybe you think to yourself, well, this probably isn’t gonna exist in 3 years, so let me just do a dynamic ad that I can change after the season. For me, though, I like being able to prime somebody’s subconscious mind with offerings. So I’m okay with somebody going back 5 years And saying, oh, I want this. Oh, it doesn’t exist anymore. Because if you do end up on our website, you’re gonna see that we’ve grown Way more than you realize if you’re listening 5 years ago.

 

Jennie Wright [00:06:40]:

Sure.

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:06:40]:

So I’m okay with it just leading to the website and them Kind of perusing around. And there’s something about priming the subconscious mind where it’s, oh, these people do a lot. How do they they’re They’re doing a live event. They’re doing a virtual event. They do this and this. So I’m okay with it being a dead link. I think if anything If somebody ends up on your website, they’re gonna do some searching, and I think that organic potential traffic is worth it anyway.

 

Jennie Wright [00:07:06]:

I actually agree with you, and I like it for sort of like the 3rd tier crawl or 2nd tier crawl for SEO. So making people go on a little bit of an investigative hunt, like, where can I find the thing? I’m all good with that because that’ll that’s that’s deepening sort of their Interest in, you know, the website if they’re going to the website and so on. I think I I kinda like that. Yeah. Yeah. Which is also why I like to embed landing pages, and people know that I build funnels. I like to embed the landing pages within the website and also multiple places like in a blog or so on. So I think that helps.

 

Jennie Wright [00:07:38]:

But We’re getting off topic. I wanna I wanna pull back to the podcasting side, and I wanna talk about authentic relationship building. So how do you, As a podcaster and as a podcast guest, how are you building authentic relationships to an unseen, unknown listener who might be listening to the podcast. How are you creating that first branch of trust?

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:08:01]:

Step 1 is checking, Rechecking and obsessing over who your actual listeners are. That’s I’ve coached hundreds of podcasters at this point, and that’s one of the most common mistakes is who’s your listener.

 

Jennie Wright [00:08:12]:

Yeah. I

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:08:13]:

mean, I don’t know. I don’t really know. So I’m always trying to figure out what are the top problems and what are the top buzzwords. Top 25 to 50 problems, Top 25 to 50 buzzwords. They go in the title, because I want people to self identify as I’m the type of person who would listen to this podcast. That’s 1. Then the second thing and, really, it’s the through line of our entire business. 1 of our mastermind friends Said scale the unscalable.

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:08:38]:

And I said, cool. What does that mean? And he said, you have to do activities that are just completely unscalable, but they’re super valuable. So one of the things that I try to do, and it’s very challenging, but I try to go on social media, and I try to go and look at who’s looking at my story On Instagram, specifically. And I try to send messages to people just saying, hey, Jenny. I hope you’re well. Hey, Jenny. Happy Thanksgiving. Happy holidays.

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:09:04]:

Whatever it is, Because people self identify that way as, oh my goodness. This happened to me recently. Someone said, oh my goodness. I can’t believe you messaged me. I listen to your podcast every day. I didn’t know that. And I never would have known that unless I went out of my way to do something unscalable because not everything is gonna work super easily to the scalable parts of the business. So I try to do things that I would find value in if I was a listener of our podcast.

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:09:30]:

That’s really that’s really what I try to do. Just like If I was a company who made custom knives, I would wanna put a custom note in every single box and ship it and say, hey. Thank you so much, Jenny, for this. Just so you know, Bob worked on it, and it’s he spent 26 hours making your knife. We hope you enjoy it. It’s just a different touch, And that’s really what we’re focused on is just an unscalable personal touch that will make you look at the business, the brand, and the humans behind it differently.

 

Jennie Wright [00:10:00]:

What other ways can people create that unscalable touch with people other than sending a DM?

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:10:07]:

I mean, it depends on what business you’re in. Right? Because even just like the knife example is 1. Even if you were to do, Let’s say you have a community.

 

Jennie Wright [00:10:18]:

Mhmm.

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:10:18]:

So maybe it’s a Facebook group, whatever it is. Do videos in there. Do audio messages in there. We I think we’re moving away from the autoresponders on social media, the things that we went into because we wanted to be hyper scalable. I think The consumer is starting to understand. Look. This is kinda tacky, and I know they don’t really care that much because they’d be here if they did. So I’m a huge proponent of sending audio messages, video messages, that type of stuff.

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:10:48]:

But I predominantly do it on social media. Yeah. So I don’t really know. It depends on if if you have a touchpoint where you can insert some sort of personality in your business, You’d have a better idea of what value that would drive than me as the business owner, but anything anything different is what I would say.

 

Jennie Wright [00:11:07]:

I I’m agreeing with you on this point specifically because in 2016, I attended a conference and, Really liked the, you know, the people we were listening to. And I was in the washroom, and I ran into the wife of 1 of the people that spoke on stage. And I I was like, oh, I really liked your husband’s talk and everything. She’s like, great. Came out of the bathroom. He’s out there too. I was like, oh, I was just talking to your wife in the washroom. Nice to meet you.

 

Jennie Wright [00:11:30]:

I’m Jenny or whatever. It’s like, nice to meet you too. Blah blah blah. And he’d, like, asked for my last name and everything. And then literally a couple weeks later, he actually sent me a message on Facebook. He’s like, hey. It was really great meeting you a couple weeks ago. You know, let me know if there’s anything I can do to help and support, which I thought was nice.

 

Jennie Wright [00:11:46]:

And then every year, he’ll be like, Happy birthday. I hope you had a really great birthday or Merry Christmas or something like that. And although I won’t purchase from this person, not because I don’t think they’re great, but because I’ve changed A little bit of, you know, how I approach my business. I still love the contact and have sent people his way. Yeah. So and and and I think that’s, that personal touch, I think I actually had this conversation, episode 15. I had this conversation about the AI pendulum swing and that people, like, jumped on the bandwagon of having bots And having, like, the auto responder bots, which is great. I don’t have a problem with that.

 

Jennie Wright [00:12:26]:

Yeah. But that personal touch, I think, is what’s been missing, and I think that’s what’s really gonna affect change Going forward is you want the human on the other side versus the AI assistant, like, when you call your phone company and like, hi. This is Emily, the AI assistant. Like, no. Give me a person. Yeah. So Yeah. It’s tough, though.

 

Jennie Wright [00:12:44]:

It’s it’s I mean, it’s not scalable, but it’s tough.

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:12:46]:

Well, I think that if you have Scalability in your business, you also have opportunity to do unscalable activities.

 

Jennie Wright [00:12:53]:

Correct.

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:12:53]:

Yeah. So it is that thought process of, At the very beginning, nothing you do is really scalable. No. But that doesn’t mean at the very end, everything should be. Because I think you lose the opportunity of adding value. Mhmm. My goal, if I can get to the point where 15 years from today, I’m able to send 1 new follower of video every day. I believe that will be massive for our business.

 

Jennie Wright [00:13:19]:

Sure.

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:13:20]:

Just just like Gary v did a video of this recently, Taylor Swift got a message in the mail, An invitation to somebody’s wedding. And logically and from a monetization standpoint, It seems like a giant waste of time for Taylor Swift to fly across the country for a 3 hour wedding. But when you get a ton of press on that, you build relationships with people. The ROI of that is is huge. So I love sending videos. I had somebody email me recently, videos, audios. They emailed me recently wanting to potentially do business together. Mhmm.

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:13:55]:

And all I wrote in the email is, hey. I’m gonna send you a longer audio because I wanna get into depth. And I recorded a voice note on my phone. I emailed it to them, and they said, oh my goodness. I can’t believe you did that. Nobody’s ever done that before. They’ll never look at us the same. So that’s a it’s just a differentiator that all things considered is probably quicker than me typing anyway, because I’m not I’m not good with words like you, Jenny.

 

Jennie Wright [00:14:19]:

You’re so you and and I would stumble over the audio possibly, but I like that. It’s also brand recognition.

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:14:25]:

Yeah.

 

Jennie Wright [00:14:26]:

I think it helps. I think it helps a lot with brand recognition. Yeah. Right. So we’re gonna get a little meta.

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:14:33]:

Let’s do it.

 

Jennie Wright [00:14:34]:

Because we’re both podcasters. Let’s talk about how the, like, essential things that you would recommend if somebody has a podcast to really boost Those numbers of downloads and listens, sort of like the the a growth plan. What would you recommend that people do? And I know you do this for a living and we are Totally gonna push people towards what you do. But if you can give, like, a couple little sort of teasers, that would be awesome. Yeah.

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:14:57]:

I would rather give it all away than Anybody give me money anyway at the end of the day, honestly? One of the things that I I’ve said so often, and the reason I say it is because I didn’t understand the importance of it in the beginning, You have to spend a lot of time titling your episodes.

 

Jennie Wright [00:15:12]:

Yes.

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:15:13]:

Don’t ever let your guest title your episodes. I’ve had so many I go on a lot of shows, and they say, what do you want the title to be? You don’t want I don’t know your audience like you do. You need to title this episode. So one thing is make sure when you title your episodes, you’re figuring out, okay. Is this a pain title? Is this a pleasure title? So a pain title might be why people end up being broke forever. A pleasure title might be how to get out of debt quickly. Right. Those are 2 very, very different titles.

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:15:44]:

I also like to balance or juggle between certainty And curiosity. So 3 ways to blank. Three ways, you know you’re Certain you’re getting 3 ways to do something. The curiosity is I don’t know what those ways are yet. We noticed a drastic uptick in listens when we really started spending a lot of time An unreasonable amount of time figuring out, okay, how does this flow? Does this resonate with the business? Is it curious? Is it too dark? That’s big. Another thing that I always recommend is create a spreadsheet of all of your episodes, How many listens they have, how long they’ve been out, and see which ones hit, and then connect the dots. Oh, every time we have this guest on, it crushes. Cool.

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:16:31]:

Every time we use vulnerability, cool. Those are 2 big ones. And now more than ever, and I’m sure you can speak to this as well, Jenny, Every layer of the business has to be treated as its own business. So we’re beyond the days now where you can just repurpose your podcast content, throw it up, And it’s gonna grow your social media and your podcast. Doesn’t work like it used to. Not No. In in the early days, it was different. So You have to you have to take as much time as you’re taking putting into the podcast and then put that into every piece of the business as well.

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:17:07]:

Your social media is most likely where people are gonna find you. SEO as well. Right? Internet search, word-of-mouth. But social media is a really good way to connect with people. Your social media has to be engaging enough to get people to come back tomorrow and then to get people to come to the podcast eventually. That’s the The ultimate goal. And then I would just say the last thing is you have to know where people are supposed to go after the podcast. So we know they’re coming from social media, SEO, word-of-mouth.

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:17:33]:

Where do they go after they listen to the episode? If your answer is, well, I want them to give me money, It’s the the likelihood of that is very, very small. So maybe some sort of group, maybe the email list, a freebie, whatever it is, But where people are coming from and where people are going to, that is just as important as what you’re doing on the podcast. I’ve met a lot of podcasters who are really good, Really good podcasters, but they don’t have the other pieces in play. It’s like having a really good breakfast sandwich, but nobody knows about you. It’s it’s honestly, it’s more frustrating than anything. So just connecting everything to make it a cohesive business is really the ultimate goal long term.

 

Jennie Wright [00:18:14]:

Those are really concrete points. I I I love playing with, this thing. I’ve talked about it my entire career online, which is filling all the holes and closing all the gaps. Right? So if somebody finds you in one place, they’re eventually going to leak out. Right? So they’ll meander off to something else, so they won’t buy the thing. If you can close all the opportunities and fill all the gaps where they are leaking out of your business, You increase your chances, chances exponentially, that they will purchase something or participate in something or be part of your community. Right? So if you’re sending somebody to a landing page and they enter their name and email, and the, you know, the confirmation of that is you send them to their, to your blog. Like, there’s no confirmation page, nothing.

 

Jennie Wright [00:18:57]:

You just go to your blog. That’s a wasted opportunity. Right? So there’s all these different ways that you can do this. And I love with podcasting. There’s actually more ways because it’s you’ve got a video component. If you’re doing video for your podcast, you’ve got an audio component. You’re building trust because your people are listening to the intonation of your voice, and you have such a deep opportunity to effect change. Yeah.

 

Jennie Wright [00:19:19]:

To to make that next step like a viable thing for people. And I just I don’t I don’t think enough people do it. They sort of it’s sort of like a hope and a prayer, Put, you know, put the podcast out and hope people will find it.

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:19:30]:

Well, it’s a mechanism. It’s it’s become the right? At the beginning in I don’t know When YouTube was the most viable, but it’s usually at the beginning of a platform’s inception, it was a mechanism. Because you got on YouTube didn’t mean you were gonna be successful. Just like now, just because you start a podcast does not mean it’s gonna be the thing that grows your business. It’s the mindset behind it. It’s the strategy behind it To your point, I think everyone can value from it. Mhmm. As long as you understand that you’re gonna have to put a ton of work in.

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:20:02]:

It’s a great mechanism, but it doesn’t necessarily go ahead.

 

Jennie Wright [00:20:06]:

How much work are you like, okay. Like, it is a ton of work, and I wanna just, like, touch on this a bit. Do you do you look at it and go, yeah, it is a ton of work and, you know, you’re gonna be I don’t know. Do you feel like that keeps people from doing it? Because you know the stats. Right? I don’t know how many podcasts. Like, they don’t even make it to, like, 5th episode or the 6th episode before they give up. Is it because it’s too much work? Is it because they get bored? I’m not seeing results. You know, how do you how do you sort of deal with that?

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:20:33]:

Well, I think it’s one thing is recording is really fun. Editing audio and video gets really old by the 5th episode, so I think that’s 1 piece of it. I I just try to be very honest with people and say, this is the question I ask in my onboarding call. On a scale of 0 to 10, how much time, energy, effort, and focus are you willing to put into the podcast? And I’ve had some people say, honestly, I just want this to be a give back to the community. Mhmm. Awesome. Don’t worry about it. But if somebody says, I want this to be my full time job in 3 years, it’s like, guess what? You’re working 14 hours a day for the next 3 years.

 

Jennie Wright [00:21:10]:

Yeah.

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:21:10]:

So to me, it’s it’s directly connected to the level of success, whatever that means to you Mhmm. That you that you want from it. And, I mean, yeah, some people get lucky. And maybe if you have a really good name of your podcast, it helps or you get that 1 guest That shares it. That helps. But you have to have the systems underneath, and you have to have the right reasons for why you’re doing it. So I always try to Paint an accurate picture for people that look. Probably nothing’s gonna happen for the 1st couple years.

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:21:41]:

Most most likely. If you’re putting a lot of of time, effort, and energy in, you’re gonna get better results, but you have to treat this like a full time job if you want part time results in the beginning. So I just try to be very honest with it. And the last thing I want is somebody to come in and say, oh, this will be super easy, and then get their heart broken. I would rather just tell them from the beginning, look. I’ve said this to clients. I don’t I don’t know if this is for you.

 

Jennie Wright [00:22:05]:

Yeah.

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:22:05]:

I don’t think this entrepreneur podcast thing is for you. I think you’d be better served going and doing something else.

 

Jennie Wright [00:22:10]:

Mhmm. There’s 2 ways to grow your influence. You either work your way in or you buy your way in.

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:22:17]:

Yep. That’s

 

Jennie Wright [00:22:18]:

1. That’s all you got. And if you’re willing to I had a client who actually had no business and started a podcast. No business at all. No clients. They were spending couple $1,000 a month on ads and a company that would do all the things and stuff like that, And they they quickly grew. Like, the the podcast started getting, I don’t know, 2 or 3000 downloads an episode. They still had no email list, no clients, or anything, but they bought their way into some influence, and they bought their way into some credibility and stuff.

 

Jennie Wright [00:22:49]:

And then the funny thing is as soon as we had an offer, people were taking it. So you’re either working your way in for a couple of years. I’d rather go that way. I think it’s a bit more authentic to me. I don’t have anything against buying in and putting in some ads and stuff, but, you know, it’s a long term play. I look at it as a long term play. The previous podcast that I had got me through the pandemic. It was crazy.

 

Jennie Wright [00:23:12]:

It was 3 episodes a week. I’d never do it again like that. But, yeah, it was definitely something helpful. And, I mean, let’s be serious. It helps us too. Right? We get better at speaking to people. We get better at talking about our messaging. Your elevator pitch has improved.

 

Jennie Wright [00:23:29]:

If you’re on video, you improve your video. Like, all the things like, all those soft Skills really get better, and it’s actually easier to, I don’t know, just easier to talk about your business or what you do, I think.

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:23:39]:

I always joke with people. I’ve gotten way more out of the podcast than any of the audience has.

 

Jennie Wright [00:23:44]:

Yeah. For sure. Yeah. I mean,

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:23:45]:

I’ve I’ve had the opportunity to Travel and interview people and cringe when I I listen back. I’d say, like, but, so often, how do I get better? There are definitely that’s another that’s a tip that I would give to any podcaster. You gotta listen to your recordings as much as it’s gonna suck in the beginning.

 

Jennie Wright [00:24:04]:

I do. I don’t like it.

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:24:06]:

Understandable. Understandable.

 

Jennie Wright [00:24:08]:

Do. But yeah. It’s important. It is. It is. I’m really lucky the editor for this podcast, Jason Wheeler. He’s also been on this podcast as a guest. He does an amazing editing job, And, he’ll put in some cute sound effects and all this cute stuff.

 

Jennie Wright [00:24:23]:

And, and then he will make me listen to it. I’m just like, I’m I’m cringing it. It’s like nails on a chalkboard, but, yes, I’m doing it. You know? Alright. Obviously, you’ve had some success with podcasting. You’ve done an amazing job. You’re obviously a expert in this space. Tell me about the challenge that you faced actually growing your own podcast.

 

Jennie Wright [00:24:43]:

What is that what did that feel like, and when did you feel like and, again, depending on what success looks like for you, when could you start calling it a success?

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:24:52]:

I I I think a lot of other people have done me the benefit of calling it a success long before I ever did, because I still don’t feel quote, unquote Successful. I’m fulfilled. I’m the most fulfilled I’ve ever been, but we have some pretty lofty goals. The honestly, the biggest thing for us was surviving to the point where We could become financially viable. The the doing the episode or the traveling or the editing it, like, yeah, it sucked, And I was not a fan of it, but it was what it was. I left a job where I was miserable, and I wanted to impact people. I never started this for money. I didn’t care about that.

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:25:28]:

I didn’t even know you can make money when I started in 2017. In the very beginning, It was how do we get to know our audience? Our audience is primarily female. That’s not what I expected. I expected to Be talking to guys who like combat sports like I do and and wanna talk about deep stuff. And when I started to realize our audience Was primarily female. I had to figure out what does that mean about me. How did you figure out? How did I figure out about me, or how did I figure out Women.

 

Jennie Wright [00:25:56]:

About the guys? Know, yeah, the audience.

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:25:58]:

They were the people that were reaching out.

 

Jennie Wright [00:26:00]:

Okay. That

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:26:01]:

was that was it. In the beginning, they were reaching out. They were sharing our podcast episodes. Mhmm. When I the very first thing I did when I was trying to make money is I coached for free. They were all women. Every single one of my clients at the time, they were all women, And it just kept making sense. And then as the team grew, our team is 90% women.

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:26:23]:

So it just got weird. But Yeah. It was really A lot of it, Jenny, was I have to work on my character. My character’s not ready to lead a team of women, and I’m not there. I wasn’t there for a long time.

 

Jennie Wright [00:26:35]:

Wasn’t it kind of a self improvement tool for you then? 100%. Yeah. So cool.

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:26:40]:

And now my wife and I have, like, an amazing relationship that would never happen if I was Bro, Kev?

 

Jennie Wright [00:26:46]:

I was just gonna say brocasting. Anything brocasting?

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:26:48]:

Look. Nothing wrong with the bro casters out there. I I got love for it. But yeah. It honestly, it was really How do I survive to the point where I can pay my bills? That was that was it. I know I want this. I know I’m most fulfilled when I’m doing this. I don’t ever wanna do anything again.

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:27:03]:

I don’t plan on retiring ever. That ain’t it for me. That’s not why I started this. I wanna have the most successful self improvement Podcast and company on the planet. That that’s the the lofty goals that we’re aiming for. Mhmm. So in the beginning, it was identifying the audience, Figuring out how I can resonate with the audience more, because I am nothing like that, and I am probably super unrelatable to the audience. And then okay.

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:27:26]:

Cool. We have this 1 episode, 2 episodes, 3 episodes a week down. Cool. How do we actually start making money so we can reinvest it And then turn this into a business. That was the biggest thing. I lost sleep over that. I lost friends over that. I lost relationships over that.

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:27:40]:

That was the biggest thing for me for sure.

 

Jennie Wright [00:27:42]:

No doubt. Well, what did you do? How did you monetize it?

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:27:46]:

In the beginning, I started coaching for free.

 

Jennie Wright [00:27:48]:

Yeah.

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:27:49]:

We have a a podcast about self improvement. I’m gonna reach out to these people who have self identified as podcast listeners, and I’m gonna say, look. I’ve never done coaching. I’d love to coach you for free for a couple months, see what happens. We got to the end of the the couple months, and I said, I can’t do it for free. What do you think of $50 a week? And everybody said yes. So that was the first time I had ever made money with a podcast. Mhmm.

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:28:13]:

Then From there, I had someone who said, hey. You know a lot. We’re probably, like, 300 episodes in. You know a lot about podcasting. You should help other people with their podcast. And then my thought was, no. I don’t know what I’m doing, and I have no idea how to help. And they they said, well, here’s a potential client.

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:28:31]:

I want you to help them. So I went to this guy’s house, and I I helped him set up his podcast studio, and then we produced a show. And that has led to I think we produce 56 shows now. So that’s something that that happened. So, yeah, it really was I need to get through this scarcity.

 

Jennie Wright [00:28:51]:

Mhmm.

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:28:51]:

What does that look like? It’s extremely unscalable, and we’re just gonna do it. And then a lot of opportunities Because of that opened up, and it was just what is the need in the market that we are capable of serving? Let’s serve that at a at a high level. And I think you’ll find When you find a need and you start serving it, there are other needs that reveal themselves to you.

 

Jennie Wright [00:29:11]:

I agree.

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:29:12]:

Yeah. A lot of this is by accident. I didn’t plan on a lot of it.

 

Jennie Wright [00:29:16]:

Yeah. Absolutely. I fell into this entrepreneur thing completely by accident. Yeah. Hadn’t never intended to do this, and it’s 11 well, 12 years later.

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:29:25]:

Right.

 

Jennie Wright [00:29:26]:

Well, it

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:29:26]:

was the right choice then.

 

Jennie Wright [00:29:27]:

Yeah. Well yeah. Exactly. This is a it’s a long gig. It’s great. I was gonna say that, I think when you do something to excellence, it does open the doors because people notice the excellence and they go, if you’re really good at this, you most likely can do this other thing That would be really, really helpful. And then the doors open. I think if you have, a certain word.

 

Jennie Wright [00:29:49]:

I was actually using this word earlier on today. If you feel entitlement that if you do something, you will be rewarded, and that’s your, you know, your entitled view on things, I don’t think it works out for you.

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:30:00]:

Yeah. I agree. I agree.

 

Jennie Wright [00:30:02]:

And and and when it doesn’t, you’re gonna feel really crappy about yourself or you’re gonna feel really defeated, and that’s when people pivot. Yeah. And then they have to start over. Yeah. And that stuff sucks.

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:30:14]:

Oh, there’s nothing there’s nothing harder than investing a bunch of time, energy, heart. Even if we just said investing your heart into something Yeah. And then having to start over, we after so my business partner and I, we We try to record all 7 of our episodes on Monday. It never happens because there’s so much going on. But every time we log off of a meeting, He says another nail in the structure or another however many nails in the structure. And he says this thing that I absolutely hate, but it’s the most valuable thing ever. Says keep doing the hard things that no one wants to do. Even at this stage, we’re still crawling through the mud, the proverbial mud, because that’s

 

Jennie Wright [00:30:49]:

what we have to do. It’s just different. The mud is Slightly different depending on your level of quote, unquote success. Yeah. It’s just And your

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:30:56]:

problems. Oh, yeah. You’re One of my my other favorite quotes, the problems that I have today are the problems I would’ve killed 4 or 5 years ago. Oh, absolutely. Killed To have a client who wants us to do more, and I can’t figure out how to get it done. What a great problem to have. Great problem to have. I’ll take that any day of the week.

 

Jennie Wright [00:31:13]:

Heck. Yeah. Yeah. So and and and it’s exponential with your own personal growth

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:31:18]:

Yes.

 

Jennie Wright [00:31:19]:

Which I love. Like, you think just doing the podcast is easy, And then as you have personal growth in terms of what you’re able to do, then all of a sudden that expands. You’re like, well, how do I take it to the next level? And then that’s the thing you’d lose sleep over? Yes. Yeah, I get it. Yeah. Yeah. Alright. Parting thoughts.

 

Jennie Wright [00:31:36]:

What are your, you know, what would you tell people who want to build a podcast and wanna create success. What would you sort of tell them as a as a parting thought for this?

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:31:47]:

If you start it for impact and you’ve you start it For really, really helping people, you’re gonna get results almost immediately. Even if you only have 15 downloads, that’s 15 people in a room that are Getting value from it, that’s a really, really, really good place to start. And then I would say this. Try to get very Familiar and specific with how you’re gonna make money. I know that might be the opposite of the advice I would have given 5 years ago. But for most of us, it’s not gonna be from ads, sponsorships, or affiliates. We’re not gonna make a meaningful amount of money. It’s gonna be from delivering A deeper level of value deeper within the business for an exchange of funds.

 

Jennie Wright [00:32:26]:

Mhmm.

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:32:27]:

Just what I’ve seen, and that’s what work that’s what’s worked for us and and people we’ve worked with. So don’t be afraid to go in and say, this is how I plan on making money. Just don’t expect it to happen as fast as the impact. The impact’s gonna come long before the money does.

 

Jennie Wright [00:32:40]:

Yeah. Fully on board with that. Where would where can people get to know you, find out more about you, connect with you so you’ll send them a DM on social and say, hey.

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:32:49]:

I would say Instagram is the best place. My handle is at never quit kid. Shoot me a message. I always tell people to fear Chase. So if you’re afraid of Your voice, send me an audio message. If you’re afraid of being on video, send me a video message. Trust me. I have sent more terrible video messages than Probably, I’ll I’ll say most people, so you will not get any judgment from my end.

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:33:09]:

I promise.

 

Jennie Wright [00:33:10]:

Fear chase.

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:33:11]:

Fear chase.

 

Jennie Wright [00:33:11]:

I like that. I’ve never heard that, but that explains Pretty much everything I’ve done. Yes. Your cheesing is good. I like it. Thank you so much for doing this. This has been really fun, Kevin. I love these conversations.

 

Jennie Wright [00:33:20]:

This has been One of the ones where I we we get to talk about sort of the intricacies, you know, behind podcasting, which is great, but also in terms of lead gen and list building and Really kinda getting into the minutiae. Everybody can also go and find you on your website. So, obviously, that is well, I have it up on my On my screen right now, so next level universe.com. There is the podcast. I’m literally looking at a whole bunch of podcast episodes right now, and there’s Ton of trainings and super fun stuff there. We also have a free gift from you in our show notes, and that looks like it is next level 5 to thrive. And there’s a registration page there that people can grab are really cool things.

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:34:01]:

Thank you.

 

Jennie Wright [00:34:01]:

And we’ll have that in the show notes. Thank you so much for doing this. I really appreciate it.

 

Kevin Palmieri [00:34:05]:

I appreciate you. It was wonderful. You’re the best.

 

Jennie Wright [00:34:07]:

Awesome. Thank you so much. And as always, this podcast is produced and edited by Jason Wheeler. And if you Found this episode to be a value, please do consider subscribing. I’d love also a review. Let me know what you think. It doesn’t have to be a great review. If you don’t like it, just tell me what it is.

 

Jennie Wright [00:34:22]:

I wanna know your authentic opinion. And also feel free to get in touch. I am all over social media, and my favorite place to be is Instagram. And you can find that in the show notes as well. And I appreciate you being part of my community. I also have a Facebook group, and you can go and join that. The link is in the show notes, and you can grab that there. Thank you so much for listening to the acquire podcast Brought to you by the Odd Phonic Podcast Network.