How to Build Popular Podcasts and Blogs

Many of you have asked me about strategies for building a popular blog and podcast. I've covered some aspects of growing a podcast in a previous post https://tim.blog/2016/04/11/tim-ferriss-podcast-business/, and then Mari Takahashi (@atomicmari https://www.instagram.com/atomicmari/) — a successful ballerina, gamer, and content creator — sent me some very good questions that I haven't discussed before. This episode goes into detail about how I've built The Tim Ferriss Show into a podcast that has almost 300 million downloads, and how my blog receives between three and four million unique visitors per month. There are certainly bigger podcasts and blogs, but I share how I've been able to grow both with only a couple full-time employees and a few part-time assistants. Enjoy! This podcast is brought to you by Four Sigmatic http://foursigmatic.com/ferriss. While I often praise this company's Lion's Mane Mushroom Coffee, I asked the founders if they could help me improve my sleep. Their answer: Reishi Mushroom Elixir http://foursigmatic.com/ferriss. They made a special batch for me and my listeners that comes without sweetener; you can try it at bedtime with a little honey or nut milk, or you can just add hot water to your single-serving packet and embrace its bitterness like I do. Try it right now by going to foursigmatic.com/ferriss http://foursigmatic.com/ferriss and using the code Ferriss to get 20 percent off this rare, limited run of Reishi Mushroom Elixir. If you are in the experimental mindset, I do not think you'll be disappointed. This podcast is also brought to you by FreshBooks https://www.freshbooks.com/pages/tim?ref=11864&utm_source=tim-ferriss&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=2016&utm_content=email. FreshBooks is the #1 cloud bookkeeping software, which is used by a ton of the start-ups I advise and many of the contractors I work with. It is the easiest way to send invoices, get paid, track your time, and track your clients. FreshBooks https://www.freshbooks.com/pages/tim?ref=11864&utm_source=tim-ferriss&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=2016&utm_content=email tells you when your clients have viewed your invoices, helps you customize your invoices, track your hours, automatically organize your receipts, have late payment reminders sent automatically and much more. Right now you can get a free month of complete and unrestricted use https://www.freshbooks.com/pages/tim?ref=11864&utm_source=tim-ferriss&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=2016&utm_content=email. You do not need a credit card for the trial. To claim your free month and see how the brand new Freshbooks can change your business, go to FreshBooks.com/Tim https://www.freshbooks.com/pages/tim?ref=11864&utm_source=tim-ferriss&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=2016&utm_content=email and enter "Tim Ferriss https://www.freshbooks.com/pages/tim?ref=11864&utm_source=tim-ferriss&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=2016&utm_content=email" in the "how did you hear about us" section.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Tim Ferriss?

  At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking.

• 0:06Speaker 01

  Can I ask you a personal question?

• 0:08Speaker 02

  No, we're just in an appropriate time.

• 0:12Speaker 01

  I'm a cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endoskeleton.

• 0:23Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by AG1, the daily foundational nutritional supplement that supports whole body health. I do get asked a lot, what I would take if I could only take one supplement. And the true answer is invariably AG1. It simply covers a ton of bases. I usually drink it in the mornings and frequently take their travel packs with me on the road. So what is AG1? AG1 is a science-driven formulation of vitamins, probiotics, and whole food sourced nutrients. In a single scoop, AG1 gives you support for the brain, gut, and immune system. So take ownership of your health and try AG1 today. You will get a free one-year supply of vitamin D and five free AG1 travel packs with your first

• 1:03Tim Ferriss?

  subscription purchase. So learn more, check it out, go to drinkag1.com/tim. That's drink A G one, the number one, drinkag1.com/tim. Last time, drinkag1.com/tim. Check it out.

• 1:24Tim Ferriss?

  Hello, boys and girls. This is Tim Ferriss and welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where typically, it is my job to deconstruct world-class performers of all different types from different fields to tease out the habits, routines, et cetera, that you can apply in your own life. This time around, I am going to answer questions myself. I have had some modicum of success with the podcasting and blog worlds. Remember those? Weblogs? Blogs? And recently received a number of questions via text and email, which I requested from Mari Takahashi. Who is Mari Takahashi? Atomic Mari. You can find her on Instagram, at Atomic Mari, M A R I. And...

• 2:11Tim Ferriss?

  She has had a lot of success on platforms that I am less familiar with, like YouTube, for instance, video, all sorts of different things. She's a very accomplished ballerina, gamer, and content creator in her own right, so I thought that I might answer her questions as a podcast episode, because these are informed questions and they are questions that I sometimes get from other people. So, the podcast, this podcast that you're listening to, has almost 300 million downloads now, and is the first business interview podcast to cross 100 million downloads. So we have that in terms of data, and lots of mistakes, and trial by fire.

• 2:56Tim Ferriss?

  And then the blog, that is tim.blog, receives between 3 and 4 million unique visitors per month. So there's certainly bigger podcasts, there's certainly bigger blogs, but doing pretty well in some top percentile, I would say, and operating with a very, very lean team. So I have one, maybe two, depending on how you define it, full-time employees, and a handful of part-time assistants for various things. And it is, in comparison with many of the shows you would recognize otherwise, in say the iTunes Top 50, a skeleton crew. Many of these shows have 20, 30 different staffers working on shows in various capacities.

• 3:40Tim Ferriss?

  This is particularly true with more complex productions, like some of those from NPR, for instance. And you can just listen to the credits at the end to get an idea. So I have kept this format very, very simple with this podcast to facilitate working with a lean team. Alright, so let's jump into it. So Mari, again, you can find her on Instagram @atomicmari. asks a number of different things. And I'm going to modify some of the questions here just to broaden the application. And if you hear me unzipping my jacket, it's because I'm getting really hot and excited about this. Number one, what equipment do you use when you're on the road? Does it differ from what you use at home? It does not differ at this point in time.

• 4:22Tim Ferriss?

  I travel with a number of pieces of equipment. And generally speaking, we're talking about the Zoom, Z-O-O-M-H6, which I use as a recorder. It could fit in a large pocket. It is not a gigantic device. And this allows me to connect as many as, or more than, four XLR cables. So very basic. I think I typically get three to six foot XLR cables, which then connect to the mic that I am using right now. And this is the Shure KSM8 microphone, which is fantastic for voice recording, even in loud environments. I have used and still have the Shure SM58s,

• 5:06Tim Ferriss?

  which were introduced to me by Brian Callen, stand-up comedian and podcaster extraordinaire in his own right, The Fighter and the Kid, along with Brendan Schaub. And this is a very simple setup. It's very hard to break. And I would encourage that you also use, this is a new addition. Took me a while to find the proper tool for this. But rechargeable batteries, Eneloup Panasonic Eneloup, E-N-E-L-O-O-P, for AA or AAA. In the case of the H6, it's AA. And I would encourage that you buy the charger, which charges in three hours. And it can sustain up to 70% of its charge for up to 10 years.

• 5:50Tim Ferriss?

  So this is, after some vetting, the best, what I would say, rechargeable batteries that you can use. Otherwise, a piece of advice is to always use new batteries, because you will find, this is advice I received from a very experienced interviewer, if you try to squeak out the last bit of a battery, you will find very often that you stick it into a recorder like this. And it shows that it's three quarters full and then 10 minutes into the interview, potentially with someone you really do not want to piss off with having to do an equipment change, it drops down to the very last bar and then you find yourself in a bad position. So new batteries every time and these rechargeables I find very, very helpful. So that is the basic setup.

• 6:33Tim Ferriss?

  There are a few other options and a few things that I travel with. When in doubt, if I'm not bringing this, even if I don't think I'm going to have to record anything, I will bring the ATR 2100, which is an Audio Technica mic that is USB connected to a laptop, for instance, and I can use then QuickTime to record anything I might need. That is the ATR 2100 Audio Technica mic, which provides incredible bang for the buck. And you could use that, and I use that for all of my remote interviews, whether over Skype or some other platform, ZenCaster and so on. There are many different options that you can look into. I tend to just use Skype and eCam Call Recorder.

• 7:18Tim Ferriss?

  eCam Call Recorder is the software and it's very simple. There are downsides, but nonetheless, it is the software I most consistently use. There are others, like I mentioned ZenCaster, that record a copy locally and then automatically upload to a service like Dropbox, so that you have high-quality audio from both sides that you can then access as the interviewer. Okay. Another piece of equipment that I used for many years, and it served me very, very well, but then recently gave up the ghost, is the IXM YellowTech. And this is an all-in-one device from Germany that is self-contained in the sense that you

• 7:59Tim Ferriss?

  have the batteries, the SD cards, everything in the mic itself, and you can record, playback, insert a headset, and so on, all from this one mic. And that you can put in a case, stick into a backpack. It's about the size of a tiny, tiny fold-up umbrella, in effect. And that served me very, very well. I use that to record, I would say... 60 to 70 intros. I used it for intros specifically because I always record my intros after the interviews. All right, let's move on. Those are the basics in terms of equipment and I am experimenting with a number of mics

• 8:38Tim Ferriss?

  from Shure and other manufacturers for using the Lightning port on, say, an iPhone to record from a directional mic. I have not yet made much progress in those tests and I really like my setup with the H6. It's extremely, extremely reliable. Number two, I'm gonna move the order around a little bit. Any pointers on being a good interviewer? All right, I get this question a lot and I would suggest, this is a great question, but I would suggest that we start with a different question and that is pregame. How do you set yourself up for a successful interview? Which is different from being a good interviewer. Few suggestions.

• 9:19Tim Ferriss?

  Number one is that you chat via video, even if you're not gonna record video. I typically don't. Say via Skype. And ask a number of questions. Make a number of points and ask a number of questions. So I always emphasize first, you have final cut. So if there's anything, I'm talking to the interviewee, if there's anything that you wanna cut out afterwards, just let me know. This is not live. We can cut anything out that you wanna cut out. And what that means is, I encourage you to be as detailed, as raw, as yourself as possible. Cursing's fine. I curse, I'm from Long Island. And we can always cut things out. We can't put interesting things back in. So please be yourself.

• 10:02Tim Ferriss?

  Number two, if you need to take a break, go to the bathroom, grab some water, just let me know at a pause in the action and we can stop it. All right? Number three, that the general structure is the following. And I might say, we'll bounce around, it's not gonna be chronological. I will probably start with a question about X. I like to tell people the first question that I'm gonna start with and that's something that I very often ask, say, TV interviewers or others when I'm being interviewed. I don't need to know all the questions, just tell me what the first question is so that I don't stumble right out of the gate. So I tell them, probably gonna start with this question. First third is gonna bounce all over your bio, we're gonna talk about your life. You will have a chance and I will bring it up certainly towards the end to talk about

• 10:45Tim Ferriss?

  your book, your movie, whatever it is that they want to promote or talk about. And I generally say, we want... The audience to fall in love with you first, the messenger, and then the message and selling whatever it is that you would like to encourage them or persuade them to buy, do, etc. is much easier. So, we're gonna bounce around first, say first third, assuming it's a 90-minute interview, which is kind of how I set the expectation typically. And then the second third will be very often some of my rapid-fire questions or questions from the audience. Then we will talk about your book, movie, whatever it might be. And then close up with some additional rapid-fire questions.

• 11:28Tim Ferriss?

  And at the very end, I will ask you, do you have a final ask or recommendation, next step, suggestion, whatever it might be, for my audience, any parting thoughts? Right? So, I set the stage. You notice that I'm really laying out a map of the territory for them and enabling them to the greatest extent possible to be comfortable. This is before I hit record or ask the first question. There are a few other things I like to ask. Number one, is there anything you would like to avoid talking about? Anything that you're tired talking about? Anything like that? And we can certainly cut it out later, but I can also make an attempt to avoid it if you would like. And I'm not gonna get into politics. I'm not going to touch on any supposed scandals or whatever. This isn't a gotcha show.

• 12:13Tim Ferriss?

  This is a show about tactics and routines, favorite books, things that my readers can use, things that will inspire and help my readers get through their own challenges, recover from their own mistakes, etc. This is not a gotcha show. And I put people at ease with that as well. And then last, what I'll very often ask is, do you have any greatest hits stories? And I will, I will very frequently pose this question before we ever chat, so I'll send something like this via email. But are there any cues that I could use? Such as, you know, tell me about that time in 4th grade when, you know, your teacher threw your chair across the room, or whatever it might be. Are there any cues I can use to bring up stories that you have seen audiences respond extremely well to?

• 12:57Tim Ferriss?

  That are really powerful, really funny, whatever it might be?

• 13:01Tim Ferriss?

  And folks who are interviewed, or people who talk for a living, or do a fair amount of talking, will over time, just like stand-up comedians, work on their material. And the smarter of them, or the smart of them, will keep track of this, of course, and naturally do this, so they will know that they have three or four absolute guaranteed hits for almost any audience. So I'll ask them if they have any of those, and any cues that I could use to bring them up. And if they're having trouble with that formulation, I'll say, "Any particularly funny stories that people enjoy hearing?" And I will then have two or three of those that I will front-load somewhere in the first third of the interview, right, first 30 minutes.

• 13:46Tim Ferriss?

  And this guarantees, A, that the interviewee gets to work on, or rather, repeat a story that they're very comfortable telling, that they know will work, which tends to put them in a good mood, and also acts as a confidence builder. And B, I know that I will have at least one to three hooks, so that I grab the listeners in the first 30 minutes, and very often in the first five to 10. Okay, this is all before I ask the first question. And then, when we ask questions, I will have no more than, say, a two-page spread in a notebook open with three to five points on either side.

• 14:28Tim Ferriss?

  So for a 90-minute to three-hour interview, I'll have no more than 10 points. And very frequently, I will follow then the thread of conversation with follow-up questions, and we'll only hit half of those, maybe, all right? Do not come into an interview expecting to ask 20, 25 questions. It's just not gonna happen if you are actually listening to the answers and not rushing through things. Which leads me to a few other suggestions. Number one, ask questions that you actually fucking care about. Ask questions you want to know the answer to, all right? And some, now, some interviewers, for instance, James Lipson, Inside the Actor's Studio,

• 15:10Tim Ferriss?

  he knows the answers to every question he is going to ask. And he very rarely deviates from the order of the questions on these blue cards. They also, this is where I got it from... Allow their guests to have final cut. They record for about three hours, I want to say, and then cut it down to whatever it is in its finished form, forty-five to sixty minutes. I would rather have a slightly more awkward conversation but not know the answers. Otherwise, it's boring for me. So I may know the answers to a handful of questions, but very rarely. And I tend to spend as little time as possible on something you could read in Wikipedia, unless I'm digging into a particular aspect that wasn't covered or that might be fun to explore.

• 15:55Tim Ferriss?

  I also tend to start with questions that they don't expect about perhaps a side interest. You'll notice that, for instance, in my interview with Edward Norton, we started with surfing. Why? Because Edward's a very smart guy. He's spent a lot of time with media. If I start with asking about a specific role, for instance, that, or the beginning of his acting career, he will go, he might, I'm not saying Edward would do this, but he might go on autopilot. I would, and a lot of people do, when they're asked about the topics that they've covered a thousand times before. They have an automatic response very often. So I'll start with surfing, which is what I did in that case. Or start with, say, in the case of Terry Crews.

• 16:39Tim Ferriss?

  The interview with Terry Crews, one of my favorites in the last six months, and certainly one of the most popular, huge, huge episode that continues to get downloaded hundreds of thousands of times per month, began with talking about his artwork, something people are not very aware of, and something that really blew me away, because he's an extremely, extremely gifted and developed graphic artist. All right? So there you have it. To avoid people going on autopilot. And ask questions you care about. Next, let the silence do the work. This is advice that I received from Cal Fussman, interviewer extraordinaire.

• 17:22Tim Ferriss?

  He's interviewed everyone from, say, Gorbachev to Clooney to, I mean, Muhammad Ali, you go down the list. He has interviewed just about all of the cultural... Shapers of the last 50 years. I mean, it's an incredible list. And Cal is a true Jedi of the craft. And when I meet someone and develop a friendship with someone like that, this includes, for instance, at one point, I hired a researcher who had worked on Inside the Actors Studio. I will ask them very nicely, something along the following lines. "I know you're probably too busy, but if there's any chance I could send you a transcript

• 18:04Tim Ferriss?

  of one or more of my episodes, I would really appreciate any thoughts or comments or feedback that you might have." Because I know I am probably missing the boat, or wasting opportunities that come up, or rushing, or doing something that a novice is prone to doing. And I really want to make the most of these opportunities when I'm speaking with these incredible people. It would really mean a lot to me, even if it were just a few lines of feedback. But I totally understand if you're too busy to reply. And Cal, very kindly, at one point, read through a few of my transcripts. And his most important feedback was, "Let the silence do the work."

• 18:47Tim Ferriss?

  And this takes some practice, because in normal conversation, which is not the same as an interview, and people have different approaches, certainly. I mean, Joe Rogan is spectacular. He has a very conversational style. James Lipton has a very, very strict, I would say, interview style. I'm somewhere in the middle, and that suits my personality. In this context, "Let the silence do the work" means if you ask a question and there is silence, awkward silence, for a few seconds. A few seconds is a really long time in conversation. I mean, try to just sit still for, say, five seconds. All right? Let's actually pretend that I'm asking you a question. So, what was it like when that happened?

• 19:33Tim Ferriss?

  That's about five seconds. It's a fucking long time. And my instinct, which is true for millions and billions of people, was to jump in and try to help the interviewee. And I'd say, "Well, put it another way." Or, "We could come back to that and ask another question." And Cal's advice was, "Let the silence do the work." Just wait it out.

• 19:55Tim Ferriss?

  It's easier via Skype than it is in person, in my experience. But let the silence do the work. And those are a few pointers to start with. There are many more. Study. Treat it as a craft. Treat it as a class. I collect questions that other people ask. I collect questions that I see in in-flight magazines and interviews. I test these, and if they don't work, I take them out. So for instance, early on, I would ask not only the question, "When you hear the word 'success,' who's the first person you think of?" Which Derek Sivers, another guest, rightly pointed out, on the first go-round, seldom produces a very interesting answer. Often, it's either my parents, or Elon Musk, or Steve Jobs.

• 20:39Tim Ferriss?

  These are the three most common answers. So I would have to say, I started then saying, "Aside from your parents, Steve Jobs or Elon Musk." And I stopped asking that question because it rarely produces the story or insights that I want my readers to be able to apply. I also used to ask the question, "When you think of the word 'punchable,' whose face comes to mind?" This is a really problematic, bad question, because it puts people on the defense. They don't want to say things they might regret. It's not a good question. But I borrowed it from someone else, because it seemed very clever. Now, I did once get an amazing story that kind of made it worth it, up to that point, fumbling with this question with Tony Robbins

• 21:22Tim Ferriss?

  in the first interview, also one of the biggest episodes I've ever published. So if you want to check that out, you can use tim.blog/tony. Probably goes to the right place. And he talks about a meeting with Obama, which is hilarious. So that's certainly worth listening to. And one of those times when I wondered, "Oh, God, I hope my audio equipment is working." It's very funny. All right, moving on, because I know we could go really, really deep on that. And I would say that... If you want to understand how I craft questions, how I test questions, what makes a good question, in my opinion, then I suggest going to tribeofmentors.com. The introduction is there for free, and in the introductory chapter, the how to use

• 22:05Tim Ferriss?

  this book chapter, I talk about crafting questions. So you could check that out. Or you just buy the book. It's whatever it is, 10 bucks or something. Okay. Next question. How far ahead do you get with banking content or episodes? This depends on when you catch me. Very often, I will bank, I would say, several weeks in advance, minimum. I tend to record, and this comes back to the batching concept in The Four Hour Work Week, I tend to record and have phone calls, this would include interviews, on Mondays and Fridays. So Mondays and Fridays are my audio days, whether that's

• 22:47Tim Ferriss?

  just walking outside and making 10 phone calls, or recording podcast episodes. So I schedule people on Mondays and Fridays, so that my week isn't interrupted with scattered recording periods. That's point number one. Aside from that, I also schedule content creation weeks, once a quarter, where one of my teammates will fly out, we will meet here in Austin, and we will record a week's worth of audio, video, etc., for various purposes. We will also make editorial decisions for the coming quarter, and then front-load, not only in terms of recording, audio for podcasts, but also video for social, and make

• 23:32Tim Ferriss?

  editorial decisions about guest contributors and so on, for the upcoming three months. And that really covers a lot of ground for us. So I'd say, in general, I like to have at least four episodes in the bank pre-recorded because I'm publishing on average six episodes a month. And I decided on that frequency because I found two episodes per week, so eight per month, to overwhelm me when listening to long-form audio. And I found six to be just enough to support the number of interviews that I want to do, which are all very personal.

• 24:14Tim Ferriss?

  I'm reaching out to all of these interviewees to solve very personal problems or improve aspects of myself. They're always personally driven. And that's roughly the cadence that I want to sustain. So six per month, that means you have two weeks per month with single episodes and two weeks per month with two episodes. Decided on that, I like to have at least four ready to rock and roll in case I get sick, in case I lose my voice, I get a sinus infection, whatever it might be. And very often, I'll have more than that. Sometimes, I get caught on my heels and then have to do something last minute. But that is also my nature and not something I recommend emulating. Okay. Next question is, how do you recommend seeking out a podcast network?

• 24:59Tim Ferriss?

  What are the advantages, disadvantages? This is really a question of how much of an entrepreneur or business owner-manager you want to be. There are many friends I have recommended seek out or contact different podcast networks. And these podcast networks offer various services that range from production assistance, post-production, editing, guest recruitment in some cases, to advertising sales. The focus tends to be on advertising sales because that is how they are incentivized to make money. Sorry for the sniffling. That is cedar fever.

• 25:41Tim Ferriss?

  The advantages are you're offloading a tremendous amount of labor, assuming that they do their job and do it well and on time. The disadvantage is that you tend to make a lot less money, and that is a fair trade. There are also some issues if you, and we'll come back to this, if you are positioning your podcast, as I position mine, as very high-end and premium, I will be charging a CPM rate, that's cost per thousand mil, right, cost per thousand downloads, that is very, very high. And by high, I mean sixty to a hundred dollars CPM.

• 26:23Tim Ferriss?

  That is extraordinarily high, and you have to make it worth it. And based on renewal rates for sponsors, that is certainly the case for this podcast. However, most podcasts, including many NPR shows, are billing out at, say, twelve dollars CPM, fifteen dollars CPM, so twenty-five percent or less of what I am charging. And you can run into an issue if you are trying to create a premium product with, say, a very highly educated audience with high average household income, which this audience certainly is, that the podcast networks are unaccustomed to selling premium products.

• 27:06Tim Ferriss?

  They are more accustomed to selling ten to twenty dollars CPM. And you will get pushback if you try to position in a premium fashion, and they will, or they might agree to it, then after the fact, say, we can't sell at sixty dollars, seventy dollars, eighty dollars CPM, we can only sell at twelve. And then all of your financial predictions go out the window, because you are estimating your percentage gross or net based on an assumption of premium, and then the feedback is, we can't sell at premium. So those are some of the disadvantages or risks. But I have many friends who are fantastic interviewers. They are not

• 27:45Tim Ferriss?

  Organized enough in a entrepreneurial or finance capacity to actually train up internal staff for ad sales if they decide to do that, for instance. And might as well touch on this point, which is ads. Okay. Ads are not something monetizing is not something I'd recommend you focus on off the bat. And if the reason you're doing a podcast is for that, I don't think you're going to last very long, generally speaking. You really have to have an itch that you are scratching, something you need to get out into the world because it is less painful, more enjoyable, but often less painful for you to get it out into the world than to keep it in your own head. Okay. This is certainly true with books as well.

• 28:28Tim Ferriss?

  And I write a lot more about this in an article that I have on the blog, tim.blog. And you can just search "how I built a number one ranked podcast with 60 million downloads." The funny part about that, of course, is that 60 million at the time was huge to me. Now it's closer to 300 million. But the principles still apply and I talk a lot about if and when to monetize. Generally speaking, I would recommend that you monetize only after you have at least 100,000 downloads on average per episode. Because this gives you the leverage and the reach to interact with sponsors who can grow

• 29:12Tim Ferriss?

  with you, who have the company size and the marketing budget to increase the price per episode, or their ability to pay and increase price per episode, even if you double in size. If you try to monetize really early, you're going to be doing, in many cases, sketchy affiliate deals, or good affiliate deals with moderate payout. And you'll then, if you're dealing with people who are paying you per episode, then I would suggest no terms. I don't use any terms, so everyone's paying upfront. It's another thing you only get if you've established a reputation. Most of the time, they're going to ask for net 30 and at 60, which can create cash flow problems.

• 29:50Tim Ferriss?

  For all of those reasons and more, develop a solid product, a solid audience before you attempt to monetize. Would you rather make $1,000 a month now or $500,000 a month later? And the difference between those two is often one of delaying the compulsion to monetize for when you actually have leverage. Okay, now, let's build on that because I get so many damn questions about monetizing that like to encourage a few different approaches. The renewal rate of sponsors for my show, despite the pricing, which is very high, is,

• 30:32Tim Ferriss?

  I want to say, at least 70 to 80%, it may be more. So why is my renewal rate so high and why is that important? It's important because, A, I'm lazy and I don't want to have a high churn rate that necessitates pitching new sponsors and converting new sponsors endlessly. That is very high labor and not something I have any desire for a second. I want happy sponsors. Happy sponsors, happy podcaster, assuming they're not high maintenance in other ways. So I do fire sponsors if they're high maintenance. But the key here is that I vet the sponsors very carefully and personally use them.

• 31:16Tim Ferriss?

  So there have been delays of two to four months for sponsors who want to, in this case, write $250,000, $500,000 checks to pre-book episodes. Actually, an important nuance. So I don't offer any discounts on episodes if they buy more episodes because the popularity of the podcast as it ramps up increases the price that they pay per episode. So the way that a sponsor gets a discount is by booking in advance because if they book, say, six episodes for Q2 and we're in Q1, the podcast is going to continue to grow and they've locked in a current price when the price is inevitably going to go up because the popularity continues to grow.

• 31:58Tim Ferriss?

  Just as a side note, again, one of many policies that keeps my life and maybe your life very, very simple.

• 32:06Tim Ferriss?

  There are two different ways that I vet sponsors. Number one, I personally use the products when possible. In some cases, say, B2B products, that's a little more challenging. But for that reason, you'll see a strong preference for consumer products of different types of services that I use myself. And I also poll my audience late at night on social media and will ask, "Has anyone out there used..." Fill in the blank. "From 0 to 10, how much would you recommend it to a friend?" 10 being the best. And I do this late at night because I don't want the companies to notice this and then spam the shit out of the feed with their employees, friends, fans, et cetera, which does happen.

• 32:49Tim Ferriss?

  So I do it late at night to test and then will look for the patterns. And I will have an assistant do this, or I'll do it myself. It can usually be done really quickly. The average must be seven or higher. All right? The average for "How much would you recommend this to a friend?" has to be seven or higher. So some of you who are familiar with the Net Promoter Score, this is a very simplistic way of approaching that on social media to try to get something that is resembling statistical significance. So I do those two things and end up rejecting about 90% of the inbound sponsor inquiries. So, that's about it. If you're interested in other policies that I use, or interested in looking at what sponsorship

• 33:30Tim Ferriss?

  of a podcast like mine looks like, you can go to tim.blog/sponsor and check it out. If you are not interested in sponsoring the podcast, please do not submit the form. There's nothing fancy or exciting or anything that comes after it, and you're not going to receive anything. So, don't spam the shit out of us. Thanks. Frequency. I mentioned briefly before, six episodes per month. The more you publish, the more it appears that you are favored by the iTunes algorithm. So, if you are trying to pop in the rankings, it makes a lot of sense to put out, say, a preview episode of a few minutes. And this is very standard practice for people who look into this. Put up a preview episode. "Hey, here's what's coming with season one," or whatever it might be.

• 34:15Tim Ferriss?

  Use that to then build up the subscriber base. And in the first week that you publish your podcast, put out at least three episodes in rapid succession, say Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and drive as much traffic as possible to subscribe. That is one tip. If the pissing contest of iTunes ranks matters to you, and who are we kidding? We all have healthy egos if you're doing this kind of thing. So why not have fun with it? Okay, so next up, we have some blog questions. And I'm going to try to try to jump through this pretty quickly. "Is it better to name a blog after yourself for recognition? Or to use a company name to reach a broader audience?"

• 35:00Tim Ferriss?

  This is from Murray. "This depends a lot on what outcome you're optimizing for. My blog has my name and face all over it. This is good if you have no desire and no intention and 100% certainty that you are not going to sell the blog as part of a media company later, right? But if you use a brand name or a company name, like Wirecutter, for instance, which was created by my friend Brian Lamb and later sold for a very healthy chunk of change, having Brian's name, if it was the Brian Lamb Show, is problematic because he may have a lot of trouble

• 35:42Tim Ferriss?

  selling that company as a sort of key man. And it's very difficult to say have that company be acquired and continue with that name in bright lights on the marquee if Brian himself does not continue on at the company. And he might, say, as part of the acquisition agreement, need to vest over time to receive some of the payout. Very, very common. But in any case, it makes it a little tougher. There is a book called Built to Sell that I would encourage you to check out by John Warlow. And there are others. But if your goal is even 10% potentially to sell, then making it your personal name is problematic.

• 36:27Tim Ferriss?

  But that's a decision I made. I don't regret it. Excuse me. Let's see. There's some questions about platform, alright? And it seems that WordPress is kind of the go-to. Any suggestions on platform? I am biased towards WordPress. There are many options. I am biased towards WordPress for the same reason that I'm biased towards email. Let me explain what that means. I'm biased towards WordPress because it is open source. So if, say, Automattic, Automattic M-A-T-T-I-C, which is a company I now advise, they run WordPress.com. And the paid services associated with hosted WordPress blogs, they kind of handle it all for you.

• 37:10Tim Ferriss?

  If for whatever reason they disappeared, went out of business, got bought by a company you didn't like, whatever, WordPress as a platform continues to exist and you can port your site from place to place to place and find people to help you with support very easily or development. This is not true for closed-box systems, right? So WordPress is, does not have any single point of failure, in other words. So if I spend years building up this blog, I don't have to worry about suddenly it being non-viable if a company goes bankrupt or something like that. That is one of the appeals of WordPress. Another appeal, highly, highly appealing element is that out of the box, it has some

• 37:52Tim Ferriss?

  of the best SEO possible, or at least it does not do anything, in my experience, terribly offensive to Google. So it tends to get my content at least, and over time this improves as your page rank increases and so on, tends to get indexed very, very effectively for search engines. That is another benefit that I've found of WordPress. There are other options. Now, I mentioned I favor email. So why email? Email compared to social media, that is what I mean. Because, as many people have experienced with, and this isn't shaking a stick at these folks, this is perfectly predictable based on their incentives to sell advertising, that Facebook or other companies that have, say, fan pages, publisher pages and so on...

• 38:40Tim Ferriss?

  This is true for Instagram as well and every other platform. If they want at any point to change their algorithm or reduce organic reach, they can do so. So I asked, I remember at one point, someone I met who had a very successful business based on Facebook, what it was like. And he said, "It's like owning the most profitable McDonald's in the world on top of an active volcano. You just don't know when it's going to change, when it's going to erupt, when your business is going to vaporize." And a lot of people have seen that. And I still use Facebook. I think it's tremendously useful. It has 10 times the click-through rate of many of the other social platforms that I've experimented with. So it still has a very, very high utility for me. However, as someone who focuses on risk mitigation and controlling as many variables as possible,

• 39:24Tim Ferriss?

  I like email. And in the last few years, have doubled and tripled and quadrupled down on that focus. Why? Because that direct means of communication cannot easily be taken away from me. And I can switch email service providers. There's a flexibility and a persistence with that that you just don't have as a guarantee on social media platforms. Despite that, of course, I am investing resources and time in certain platforms such as Instagram. All right. Pointers on just doing the damn thing and not getting worked up about it being perfect when getting started. And this is something a lot of people have trouble with. I would write posts, if we're talking about blogs specifically, that you can target to

• 40:09Tim Ferriss?

  one or two of your friends. Don't try to be an empathic, super genius if that poses some type of challenge for you. Don't try to write anything for the world. If you try to write something that everyone will like, no one will love it. So feel free to polarize and write for one or two of your friends. When I write articles, I effectively want 10% of my audience to love each post. That's it, 10%. And my audience is about 70% male, 30% female, maybe 65, 35, but predominantly male.

• 40:43Tim Ferriss?

  And I'm looking for 10% of my audience to love it, period. What that means is, over time, say each six months, or something like that, everyone in my audience will see a post from me that they say, "Holy fucking shit, this is the best thing I've read in ages, let me share this with 20 of my friends." Alright, I don't care about everyone loving each piece, and that removes a tremendous amount of pressure for you to figure everything out and play the kind of Switzerland of editorial. And please, everyone, do not try to please everyone. Try to create raving fans that comprise maybe 5 to 10% of your audience for each post. That's my goal. I don't care about the rest. They'll have their turn later, but for now, if they're like, "What?

• 41:26Tim Ferriss?

  A post on microbiome and da-da-da-da-da, that's boring as shit." Well, that's fine. It can be boring to you, but 10% of my audience is gonna love this and go completely bonkers over the details. So, that's fine. You'll get your turn. That's how I think about it. What are things that are easily outsourced and should be outsourced to save time? Logos, intros of podcasts, uploader, scheduler, etc. I, despite my proclivity for outsourcing and delegating, do not delegate writing. So if there is a blog post that is certainly longer and editorial, with my name on it, then I've written it. I just don't ethically feel okay with not doing that. Many people have no compunction about that, and that's fine, that's their decision. But a lot of folks you know as famous bloggers

• 42:10Tim Ferriss?

  have not written on their blogs personally in years. I know this for a fact. Anything with my name is written by me, with the exception of some very basic, say, intro text for podcasts, which is really more procedural. That stuff I might have an editorial assistant help with. And logos, certainly, I'm not designing myself. I'm hiring someone, whether one-on-one or through 99designs, which I do use quite consistently. And intros of podcasts, for sure, the music and so on, I will hire someone else to handle. And that can range from royalty-free music on many different sites, which you can find out there, to hiring someone to compose,

• 42:53Tim Ferriss?

  which was the case for the new Tribe of Mentors podcast. And some people may notice, on the Tribe of Mentors podcast, which I pushed out, which had shorter content much more frequently... Stayed at number one across all of iTunes for about a week straight during book launch. Very useful. That's another story. That the music was the same music I had had originally composed for the Four Hour Chef video trailer. So if you want to see the movie trailer of the Four Hour Chef, you can take a look at that on the YouTubes. All right. Next question. If you run ads on your blog, upload or schedule, there are things you can use for social, for instance, whether it's Edgar or others, that can be very, very helpful for that, particularly if you're going to take a vacation or travel.

• 43:35Tim Ferriss?

  For WordPress, the scheduling and so on can be done within the UI, within the dashboard of WordPress. So for any editorial that we're scheduling out in that way, we simply use that. For the podcasts, because the quality assurance is so important to me on that, I have several sets of eyes and ears who double check and confirm everything before it goes out. All right, next. If you run ads on your blog. I don't run ads on my blog, but I'll try to answer the question. Roughly how much revenue does 1,000 visits on the blog per month equate to? 5,000, 10,000, 20,000? This depends on CPM, all right? Cost per thousand that I mentioned earlier. And that varies very widely depending on the nature of the advertising and the nature

• 44:19Tim Ferriss?

  of your blog, your editorial, who are your customers, right? So if you're selling infomercial products, then the price is probably going to be much, much lower, cost per thousand. If you're selling, or if you're able to help, say, Mercedes sell their highest end units, or Omega or Rolex sell watches, you're going to be able to charge a very high premium CPM. So it depends partially on the nature of your audience. But CPM can range from $2 CPM all the way up to 100, as I mentioned. But the pricing changes constantly. And you have to look at, say, display contextual is separate. You can look up contextual advertising to learn what that is.

• 45:03Tim Ferriss?

  And then there's something called native advertising, which leaves a really bad taste in my mouth, which is basically hidden advertising disguised as editorial. I just don't like that at all. It just... And there may be varieties of that that I would find perfectly fine and unoffensive, but in generally, I find that to be code for tricking audience into...

• 45:26Tim Ferriss?

  Thinking something is editorial when in fact it is an advertorial, but not explicitly disclosed as such, or disclosed in such a way that it's really ambiguous. So I do not do that. Do you find that users stay on blogs for longer when there are no ads? I don't think so. I don't think it matters. Unless the ads are, say, of a pop-up variety or really interruptive to the read. Is it more strategic to focus on embedded affiliate income than ads? Depends on your strategy. So it depends what you're optimizing for. Embedded affiliate income, I would just be very careful with. You need to make certain disclosures if you're going to do that, to be on the right side of the law.

• 46:07Tim Ferriss?

  For instance, particularly if you want to secure any type of insurance policies to protect you against libel claims and so on, which I would encourage if you're going to take this seriously and build it out. And that is the reason, if you go to tim.blog, you can search disclosures, and I think it might be right up in one of the top navbars, it almost certainly is, and you'll see all these FTC-related disclosures that I make, which are really just insurance policies. Otherwise, it's like if someone takes you out to lunch and tells you about their product, and then you cover the product on the blog, you could run into a conflict that could actually put you into some legal gray area at best. So you want to be very, I'm very, very conservative with that kind of stuff. So is it strategic? Depends on your strategy. I would recommend reading a book called The Blue Ocean Strategy to make some decisions

• 46:52Tim Ferriss?

  on that. Really comes down to creating your own category that you can dominate and own versus trying to compete in a pre-existing bloody category. The affiliate income, one other note on that. If you are going to also use email, you have to be very, very careful about not using affiliate links in email, and you can look into the regulations related to that. At what point is it necessary to seek out guest editors to contribute to your blog? Never. You don't have to ever do that. Look at Tim Urban and Wait But Why. There are many, many blogs, many different...

• 47:29Tim Ferriss?

  Content creators on different platforms who from start to finish will only produce things themselves, only write things themselves. And that can be extraordinarily successful and profitable. So you don't have to do that. I occasionally bring in guest contributors on my blog because I enjoy reading long-form content. And by the way, if anyone's wondering, well, should I write things that are less than 500 words, less than 1,000 words? Some of my blog posts are 10,000 to 20,000 words. And many of them are my most popular posts that end up being perennially revisited. And much like real estate, this is one of my goals. I want a blog post I put up to be more valuable two years from now than the day that I publish it.

• 48:14Tim Ferriss?

  And that relates to Google Juice and other things. But my most popular posts are all years old at this point. And they appreciate over time. So I go super long-form. Tim Urban takes it to a whole new level. And I did a podcast episode with him. If you just search Tim Ferriss Show, Tim Urban, listen to that. Oh, my God. I mean, some of his posts, if you want to call them posts, are like 70,000 words. That's a book. It's bigger than some books, broken up into sections. All right, so you don't ever need to get guest editors. Let's see. Next question. What are, if any, must-have widget recommendations? Really nothing for the blog that I can think of other than, based on everything I just said about email, I would encourage you to have something for email capture.

• 48:59Tim Ferriss?

  It does not need to be a pop-up or anything like that, but optimize for email capture, even if, like me, you don't email anything for the next like two to three years. And of course, you need to follow the rules and regulations related to reactivating such email. But think about email very, very closely. That would be my recommendation. And really, that's about it. We had the same question about backlogging content. The editorial, particularly if I have guest posts, I can actually spec out for the next three to six months in many cases. And then comments. This is not a question from Marty, but a question that I'll add. What to do with comments? I have comments, and if you go to tim.blog and scan down to the end of any blog post with comments, you will see that I have comment rules.

• 49:44Tim Ferriss?

  If people violate those comment rules, that's like they're coming into my house for dinner, kicking off their shoes, putting their filthy feet up on my table and like spitting on the ground. I boot them. I have no problem blacklisting people. You're gone. It's a one-strike-you-out policy, period. And if people seem to be getting escalated, I'll say, "Play nice." I'll sometimes jump in and just say, "Hey, guys, play nice." And usually, that's enough to correct behavior. But I'm cultivating a neighborhood. You're the mayor of a town, so if you want to let people break windows and shit on each other's porches, hey, that's up to you. I don't allow that shit at all. I have a zero tolerance policy for all that stuff. Look up the, I think it's the "broken windows theory of crime," and you can understand why. Other people, like Seth Godin, massively, massively successful blog, zero comments.

• 50:28Tim Ferriss?

  So you don't have to have comments. I just like the feedback, and my commenters will often catch little mistakes that I've made, or they will chime in, and I'll have a post on swimming, let's say, and it'll be like, "Hey, I'm the national team coach working with Olympians, just had two things to add." Holy shit, that's fucking rad. So I love that kind of interaction, and it is my personality. It's my fit. But really, all of these things should be an outgrowth of your strengths and your interests, in my opinion, if you want it to be sustainable. You're gonna need endurance to do this over time, and to have endurance, you're gonna need enthusiasm. You're gonna need to be excited about what you're doing, and if you get into podcasting,

• 51:11Tim Ferriss?

  blogs, whatever it is, just to make money, you're gonna be competing against people who have the enthusiasm, and they're gonna bury you. They're just gonna outmaneuver you and outlast you, at the very least. So find something you're stoked about. Life's too short to do otherwise. All right, guys, that's it for now. I hope you have found this useful, and that's about all I have to add to this. Please let me know if you enjoyed this episode, if you'd like more tactical stuff on content creation like this, if you have other questions about these types of themes, these types of topics, please let me know. Probably the easiest place is on Twitter, @Tferriess, T-F-E-R-R-I-S-S, on Twitter.

• 51:55Tim Ferriss?

  You can also hit me on Instagram or Facebook, Tim Ferriss, on both of those. So, T-I-M-F-E-R-R-I-S-S. And... I would imagine there'll be some show notes on this, so if you want to find links to things I've mentioned, just go to tim.blog/podcast and find this episode, along with every other episode. And as always, thank you so much for listening. I love doing this show, and it's because of you guys. So thanks. I'll talk to you soon. Bye. Hey, guys. This is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is Five Bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me? Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun before

• 52:40Tim Ferriss?

  the weekend? And Five Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered. It could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up in the world of the esoteric, as I do. It could include favorite articles that I've read and that I've shared with my close friends, for instance. And it's very short. It's just a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend. So if you want to receive that, check it out. Just go to fourhourworkweek.com. That's fourhourworkweek.com, all spelled out, and just drop in your email,

• 53:21Tim Ferriss?

  and you will get the very next one. And if you sign up, I hope you enjoy it. This episode is brought to you by FreshBooks. Man, oh, man, do a lot of listeners of this podcast and readers of mine love FreshBooks, to the extent that I ended a meeting with the CEO not very long ago. Why are they so popular? Well, they are the number one cloud accounting software designed exclusively for self-employed professionals, that's many of you, and used by more than 10 million people. You can send invoices, track your time, and get paid very, very quickly, which suits the needs of a lot of freelancers, a lot of entrepreneurs, and beyond. You can take pictures of receipts. You can link your credit card and debit card, so all the things you buy automatically appear in your FreshBooks

• 54:04Tim Ferriss?

  in the right category. So on and so forth. Makes taxes easy, makes invoices easy, makes your life easier. And also, in fact, I'd recommend a PDF. They didn't ask me to read this part, by the way. They put together a PDF a while back called "Breaking the Time Barrier," subtitle "How to Unlock Your True Earning Potential." So you can search for "Breaking the Time Barrier." A lot of people ask me... How can I get a four hour work week with a service business? And the story in that ebook, it's PDF, is the short answer. It's really, really good. So I think you should also check that out. So Breaking the Time Bear, check it out. But also, why not test out FreshBooks? Claim your 30 day unrestricted free trial at freshbooks.com/tim

• 54:46Tim Ferriss?

  and enter Tim Ferriss, two R's and two S's, in the how did you hear about us? Section. That sounds like we're going to get very little tracking. That's a lot of work, but just go to freshbooks.com/tim and try it out because it is a very good product and I think you will find it simplifies your life. Enjoy. This episode is brought to you by Four Sigmatic. You might remember Four Sigmatic for their mushroom coffee, which was created by those clever Finnish founders. And when I first mentioned that coffee on this podcast, the product sold out in less than a week. It lights you up like a Christmas tree, which can be really useful. However, recently I've been testing the opposite side of the spectrum, a new product, and that is their Reishi Mushroom Elixir to help me end my day,

• 55:31Tim Ferriss?

  to get to sleep. As you guys may know, longtime listeners at least, I struggled with insomnia for decades. I've largely fixed that, but still shutting off my monkey brain has never been easy. It still isn't easy very often. And I've found Reishi, which I've been fascinated by for a few years now, has been very, very effective and calming. Their old formula, however, Four Sigmatic's old formula, included stevia and I like to avoid sweeteners, all sweeteners, for a host of reasons. And I then just pinged them and asked, hey, guys, I would love to experiment with this and maybe actually suggest it, but I'd like a version without sweeteners. If you'd be open to it, if too much of a headache, don't worry. And they are always game for experimentation.

• 56:16Tim Ferriss?

  And so they created a special custom version without the stevia, without sweeteners. Now it is part of my nightly routine. Their Reishi Elixir comes in single serving packets, which are perfect for travel. And in fact, I'm about to leave the country right now and I have a packet in front of me that's just going to sit in the end of my carry on bag. You only need hot water and it mixes very, very easily. Here's some recommended copy that they put in the read. So I'm going to read it and then I'll give you my take. A warning for those in the experimental mindset. Reishi is strong and bitter, in parentheses, like any great medicine. So if the bitterness is too much, I recommend trying it with honey and/or nut milk such as almond milk. End quote.

• 56:58Tim Ferriss?

  So I'm gonna say, no, you should suck it up and you should drink the tea because it's not that bitter. And maybe you should take the advice of old Chinese people when they're criticizing youngins when they say, "不能吃苦", which means you're not able to eat bitterness. Bitter is, in many cases, an indication of things that help liver detoxification and so on. Not saying that's the case here, but I've tested this reishi elixir on family members, on friends. Everybody has liked it. It's a little bit earthy. It's not that hard. So I would just say suck it up and no, don't put in honey or nut milk or any of that shit. Just drink the goddamn tea. It's delicious, I think. If you like pu-erh, that kind of stuff, that type of tea, you're gonna dig it. So just try it.

• 57:42Tim Ferriss?

  Okay, back to then my read. If you'd like to naturally improve your sleep, both onset and quality, I think naturally, you might just enjoy this reishi elixir without any sweeteners. It has organic reishi extract, organic field mint extract, organic rose hips extract, organic tulsi extract. And that's it. No fancy stuff, no artificial whatchamacallit, anything. So check it out. Go to foursigmatic.com/ferris and get 20% off this special batch. I don't know if they're gonna be making much more of this, since it was made specifically for you guys. So do me a favor and try it out, so that they continue to be open to experimenting with me to create products for you guys specifically.

• 58:25Tim Ferriss?

  Check it out, foursigmatic, that's F-O-U-R-S-I-G-M-A-T-I-C.com/ferris, F-E-R-R-I-S-S, and get 20% off this special batch. And you must use the code ferris to receive your discount, F-E-R-R-I-S-S. So again, go to foursigmatic.com/ferris and then use code ferris for 20% off of this rare, exclusive, limited run of reishi mushroom elixir for nighttime routines without any sweeteners. Enjoy.