Building Profitable Podcast Networks that Work w/Ralph Sutton

[00:00:00] jennifer Francis: This is tools of the podcast trade, where you can learn about the tools and resources you can use to start and grow your podcast tune in this week. As we talk about the help, you need to remove the mystery from podcasting. So you can become a successful podcaster that can reach your audience, where they are.[00:00:20] My guest today is Ralph Sutton, owner of Gas Digital and is a podcast host and not just any podcast host as you hear going forward. Thank you for, thank you. Yeah, thank you for coming and talking to us here.[00:00:35] No problem. Yeah, sure. The first thing I always wanna know is And choir in mind, wanna know who is Ralph Sutton? [00:00:42] Ralph Sutton: Wow. That's a big question. I'm gonna answer it in the context of this space, not just me as a human being. Okay. But in this space, I think it's more prevalent. I worked in radio for a very long time.[00:00:54] I had a nationally syndicated radio show that was on about a hundred stations and. [00:01:00] For most of my adult life from 29 to about 45, so 15, 16 years. And that led to me being a VJ on VH one and doing shows on MTV and hosting a bunch of music events around the country and did that as I identified as that for most of my adult life.[00:01:17] And then about seven years ago. The writing was on the wall. For me, that podcasting was gonna be the answer and radio was dying a slow, not so slow, but slow, miserable death. And it was time to pivot. Towards podcasting, which I started my first show about seven years ago. I think it's almost exactly seven years ago right now.[00:01:37] And that led to me doing both for about a year, maybe a little more. And then at one point when podcasting started to make more money for me than radio and radio became. A a hobby that made a little bit of money. It was time to let it go. And then about a year and a half, two years after I started the podcast, I launched a network which is [00:02:00] Gas Digital that currently has about 22 shows.[00:02:03] We have two studio spaces here in New York city. We're building a third. And we do, you know, I don't even know exactly how many. Millions of listeners a week across the platform. [00:02:12] jennifer Francis: Mm-hmm okay. Thank you for sharing and give us a good overview of not just who you are, but what you do. Thank you. So Gas Digital is a podcast network.[00:02:24] Tell us about that. [00:02:25] Ralph Sutton: Yeah. So it's funny is that when I had my podcast, I had met a couple of other podcasters in New York. And as I said, I was doing my radio show and at the time. I would say my podcast had, let's say 5,000 listeners. I'm just giving you a, a rough estimate. I couldn't tell you. Okay. And I had met other podcasters that also had like four to 5, 5, 6, 7,000 listeners, and none of us could make any money.[00:02:51] Hmm. And I remember thinking if I, one of my, my partner said this, if I was a comic and everywhere every week, 5,000 people showed. [00:03:00] To listen to me talk, they would shut down that city, like you're that popular and yet we can't make any money. So then I suggested let's do what I was doing in radio. So in radio, I had 80, 90, a hundred stations at one point.[00:03:14] All small stations, but you combine them all and you could say, oh my God, we had a half a million people listening every weekend. Right? Mm-hmm so let's get four or five other shows that are similar to mine and yours, my friend business partner Lewis. And then we could say, Hey, we have 50,000 or a hundred thousand listeners, and we could sell it as a package.[00:03:34] That was the initial idea. Mm-hmm and they did it. I'm in my second bedroom. That's where I am right now. As we record this and we did it here in my second bedroom, we had four shows. That all recorded three of them on one day, one of them on another day, which was mine. So one day a week stunk, there were a bunch of people in my house for one day and then the other day would be my show, which I was doing anyway.[00:03:55] And that's how it started. Fast forward. A year later, we had 11 [00:04:00] shows. There were people in my house every day, breaking things, eating things, drinking. And I said to my business partner, if we don't get this out of my house soon, I'm going to murder somebody so we need to find a studio. And then we found that space.[00:04:16] It's been four years in that studio space. We just passed our four years there. [00:04:22] jennifer Francis: Wow. Oh, that's some news. So how can podcasters who are, who have small audience now, you, you said you started at the point, you looked at the network was you had 5,000 So how can a small podcaster start a network if they have less than 5,000?[00:04:39] Is it possible? So [00:04:40] Ralph Sutton: I don't think you should be on a network. I don't. I tell people this, I get people asking to join guest digital all the time. Right. Okay. And the question is, for what reason? Okay. So I think everybody should know how to do everything first. You don't have to be the greatest editor. You don't have to be the greatest [00:05:00] Canva or Photoshop, whatever you're using, whatever software platforms you're using.[00:05:04] Mm-hmm just know enough to get it out there. Right. Mm-hmm you should never be beholden to somebody else cuz you're waiting for your show to be edited. It's crazy. You just need to know how to do it. It's easy enough. The, the answer is if I could do it, you could do it. It's not hard. Right, right. And then why would you join a network?[00:05:22] So for us. The reason why you would join a network is maybe you're. You don't want to do the editing anymore. You don't wanna book your guest anymore. You don't want to do the show from your home. You want to go somewhere mm-hmm then it makes sense. But that really only makes sense. Once you pass a threshold of a certain listenership, because.[00:05:42] Inherently, you're going to be giving up a percentage of whatever income you're making in exchange for joining that network. Okay. So you have to do the the due diligence to see, is it worth it for most people? I don't think it's worth it. Unless you start getting to where you have 40, 50,000 listeners.[00:05:59] Per [00:06:00] episode. I think networks don't make sense because you're going to be giving up 20, 30% of your income, whatever that is. And basic CPM rates are as they are. You're probably not making enough to warrant giving up 30% unless it's a hobby, you know? Right. And then I don't mean that ever. To discourage people, because I think podcasting is the best way to build the platform.[00:06:25] The, the reason simple is, I don't know, there's 500 million people on Instagram, let's say, right? Mm-hmm so you're one of 500 million people. And on podcasting, there's maybe a million podcasts, maybe 2 million. So now you're only one of 2 million, so it's already way smaller audience. Right? So now you're only, it's a lot less intimidating, but then the second part of that, If you have a hundred thousand followers on Instagram, you make no money.[00:06:52] You really, nobody cares. You need at least a million to where you could start making real money. Mm-hmm . And even then you may not. But if you have a hundred [00:07:00] thousand listeners to your podcast, you can live off that show. So it, when you hear it that way, It's far more enticing to start a podcast than to start a YouTube channel, to start a TikTok, to start a Facebook page or whatever it is cuz their CPM rates are laughable compared to podcast CPM rates.[00:07:19] So I am a big advocate of just start a podcast it's so much easier now than it was six, seven years ago. Anybody can be up and running in under an hour. So why would you not at least see if it's something that interests you and take it from there.. [00:07:33] jennifer Francis: Yes. [00:07:34] Yes. Good encouragement. I like it. Thank you. So don't be looking at other people who are doing networks, right?[00:07:40] Do what works for [00:07:41] you, right? Yeah. So you a show. A[00:07:44] Ralph Sutton: funny story is I was on a show. This is a couple years ago. He had a very popular show. He was getting, like a hundred thousand. Views just on his YouTube. And he was, and he was a podcast. So mm-hmm, usually, it's like maybe 5% or 10% is on, [00:08:00] on your YouTube page.[00:08:01] If you're a podcast, most of your audience comes from the podcast. And I remember coming in and saying, dude, congratulations. I'm so happy your show's doing so well. I knew the guy for a while and his answer was, I don't know, Joe Rogan gets 10 million views, so what's my hundred thousand. So yeah, you could always compare yourself to other people and you'll never be happy.[00:08:19] The, the counter argument is, yeah, you should never be happy. You should always say, all right. I have a thousand listeners right now. Great. How do I get to 2000? Mm-hmm how do I get to 5,000? If you're resting on your laurels, this is not the right business, unless you're just doing it for funsies. If it's just for fun, who cares?[00:08:36] Right? How many people. But if you're doing it as a business, you should have metrics that you try to strive for or what's the point. [00:08:44] jennifer Francis: Yes. Makes sense. Thank you. As one person said, don't compete against other people compete against yourself. [00:08:50] Ralph Sutton: So yeah, it's a good way to put it, but also it's good to know, like whatever space you're in.[00:08:55] Mm-hmm whatever. Not just like, you know, if you're gonna be in the iTune store of your [00:09:00] subcategory, it's good to know who the major players are. Right. You should be familiar with those shows, what are they doing that I could steal and do better? What are they doing that I don't like, how can I make my show fit into that?[00:09:12] You know, round, round, square, whole thingy where it still sounds like it's part of that net. Vibe, but it's my own.

[00:09:19] jennifer Francis: Right, right. Yeah. Makes sense. Niche down. Good. Okay. Thank you. So this is tools of the podcast trade. Tell me some of the tricks of the [00:09:28] trade. [00:09:29] Ralph Sutton: So first of all, I would recommend to everybody join.[00:09:33] The subreddits join the Facebook groups, join anywhere that they're talking about podcasting, because you will never know everything. Right. And you never know where you might get a little nugget of knowledge that you're like, oh, wow. How did I not know that changing this setting would increase my, you know, decrease my output time from the Adobe audition by 10% and that, you know, over time would, you know, save you countless hours.[00:09:59] So [00:10:00] I I'm a part of every single major one that I could find. And it's funny when I started on the podcasting subreddit, I think there was 5,000 people. Now there's a million that shows you how quickly. It grew, right? Yeah. So that's number one, join all those platforms and reds and get into those conversations, cuz you never know what you're gonna learn from them.[00:10:19] Number two, don't cheap out on your hosting company. There's three or four major players. There's some that are free. If they're free, you get what you pay for. So don't do that. You know, there's the, I don't like necessarily plugging anybody, but there's three or four major players in that space. You can Google it and you'll see, there's a reason.[00:10:39] They're the major players. It's going to make your life a lot easier. I made that mistake in the. And you don't wanna start dealing with redirects and starting out, how do I switch my RSS? You don't wanna bother with that, right. Go with one of the top show. You're you're talking at about 10, $15 a month to get your show out there, give up [00:11:00] a, a coffee once a week and you can afford it, you know?[00:11:02] Yes. So there's no reason not to do that. Then there's the industry standards. You know, if you're free editing your audio, audacity is one of the standard. I prefer audition, but that's just cuz I grew up working in the Adobe suite space, but AUD audacity is just as good. If you're doing audio only video has come a long way.[00:11:22] You're using Riverside. There's you know, zoom obviously. And then there's a bunch of others out there right now. Mm-hmm I would say, find what makes sense to you in that world. Definitely think. You know, this, the pandemic made this easier. You should have a video component. There's no reason why you shouldn't, you know, you want to be where people are looking.[00:11:45] So if they're on YouTube, which is the second biggest platform for searching on the planet after Google it's idiotic that you wouldn't be there. And they don't like a thumbnail with audio. It's a video platform. If you just put up a thumbnail, some sites do that [00:12:00] automatically for you. It's better than nothing.[00:12:02] But you should have video and a video element, and then you could start doing things like putting up little clips on TikTok and putting clips on Instagram and using the reels function. Cause Instagram is really pushing reels. So you just want to be everywhere. Having said that people do not like jumping platforms.

[00:12:21] If I'm on Instagram, doming me go listen to your stupid podcast. I'm not gonna do it right. There is a small amount of people that will, but the idea is to constantly share. The more you do eventually, someone's gonna say all. I find that that piece of information was interesting enough. I'm gonna go listen to the rest of the episode, but realize we started a podcast on our network with this guy that had like 6 million Instagram followers.[00:12:47] And I'm like, oh man, we just need 1% of his audience to come over and we'll be killing it. We couldn't get 10,000 people to listen. It was crazy cuz he didn't want to put in the time it's gonna take [00:13:00] a few years. So that is what it is. Realize that if you think you're gonna make money overnight, you're in the wrong platform.[00:13:07] End of story. And that's with anything regarding social media. Sure. Any clip is one clip away from going viral and tomorrow you could have 50,000 listeners, but you know, just being in the realism that it's gonna take a while. Yes. [00:13:22] Great. Thank you. Thank you for those tips. They're very helpful. Thank you.[00:13:26] So what is Ralph grateful for today? [00:13:28] Ralph Sutton: You know what I would say? It's very, it sounds I don't wanna say it's bragging, but it is. I realize how fortunate I am to be working in a space that I enjoy what I do. Sure. There is trials and tribulations every day mm-hmm , but for the most part, I'm in a space where I get to just.[00:13:45] BS on a microphone and make money at it. And I realize to be in a situation where you love, what you do is rare. My brother, he makes money. He hates his job, but he makes good money. And then he enjoys [00:14:00] his downtime doing other things. Yeah. My happiest moment every week is doing my. That's when I'm happiest.[00:14:07] That's when I laugh the most, when I have the most energy I'm on a high at the end of my episode, every week I do two episodes of one show called sex, drugs, and rock and roll. And I do one episode of my health podcast called the good sugar podcast. And I'm always in the best mood right after those shows, even a bad episode is still good for me.[00:14:26] I still enjoy it. So I realize I am fortunate. It's the middle of the day while we're taping this on a On a Wednesday and I'm sitting at home just talking all day. That's what I do. I'm lucky. And I try to really live in the moment and appreciate. [00:14:42] Yes, thank you for sharing. And I appreciate that. And aiming to that.[00:14:46] Yes. Thank you. All right. So how can we get in touch with you? Tell us about, you know what you do specifically how we can [00:14:54] Ralph Sutton: consume it. So well, first of all, you can follow me everywhere at I am Ralph Sutton, [00:15:00] that's across all social media platforms. I do believe in social symmetry, figure out a way to come up with a name that works for all platforms.[00:15:07] That being said. The SDR show, which is sex, drugs, and rock and roll comes out twice a week. You'll find it anywhere you consume podcasts. Be it. Okay. You know, podcasts or YouTube and same thing with good sugar podcasts. Good. Sugar is one word. And then good sugar podcast that comes out every Monday.[00:15:25] And those are available anywhere you watch or listen, the podcast and just follow me at, I am Ralph Sutton. Our network is gas, digital network.com, but really that's for people who have listened or watched. 20 episodes, love the show. And like, you know, I want to get it early. I want to get it without commercials.[00:15:45] I wanna watch an HD and that's when you're paying to subscribe, but I realize that's not for everybody. Just go listen anywhere. I don't care. I want you to enjoy it. And that's all that matters to me. Okay. [00:15:57] Thank you very much. We'll put those links in the show notes so [00:16:00] people could have access to them.[00:16:01] Thank you very much for coming and talking to us today. Arrive any parting shots. [00:16:05] Ralph Sutton: No, you know what I would say this my health show, I've lost 70 pounds in the past couple years after being CrossFit. And you know, the main thing I've learned from it again, is living in the moment and whether even if you're not doing a podcast that you love for a living, if whatever you're doing next time, you're out and it's beautiful outside next time you're talking to your significant other and having a romantic moment.[00:16:26] Next time you're watching your kid do anything that you're enjoying. Take a moment to embrace how lucky you are, because that moment may never happen again. So just enjoy it and really try to live in your moment, cuz that is a, a fortunate thing to have. Thank [00:16:43] you. Thank you. I appreciate you coming and speaking to us today.[00:16:45] Ralph Sutton. [00:16:47] Ralph Sutton: Thank you very much for having me. [00:16:49] Absolutely.[00:16:50] jennifer Francis: Got questions about podcasting. Do you find yourself struggling with the tools and strategies that you know will help you launch [00:17:00] and grow your show? Why not join the new west podcasters club where you can get your questions answered by me or one of our guest experts? The link to. Meeting is below sign up today and don't let confusion about podcasting.[00:17:18] Stop you from owning your genius, whether you are an individual or a nonprofit. The new west podcasters club is where podcasters come for answers. Link below for our next meeting.