I talk with Michael Nguyen, founder of Take This Podcast, a production company that assists real estate and finance creators in growing their shows without burnout. With seven years of experience and successes like Coach Carson's show (130,000+ YouTube subscribers), Michael makes the case for why authors should consider podcasting. Blog readership is declining in the AI era, while the active podcast landscape is far less crowded since most shows fade out before reaching ten episodes.

Michael stresses that the first step is identifying your ideal listener, their age, routine, and pain points. We explore two core formats: interview episodes, which create audience cross-pollination through guest swaps and networking, and solo episodes, which let you go deep on a topic and position yourself as the expert. For authors, a book is a goldmine of podcast content, including excerpts, behind-the-scenes stories, character inspiration, and writing process details, all of which act like Amazon's "Look Inside" preview, hooking listeners while leaving them wanting the full book.

Consistency is the through-line of the entire conversation. Michael breaks production into three phases and notes that even a 15-minute episode takes far more than 15 minutes to deliver. That workload drives podfade, which is where his production service steps in, handling editing, publishing, and admin so creators can focus on recording.

The strongest argument for podcasting is the trust factor. Listeners integrate shows into their daily commutes, meals, and walks, and that recurring presence creates a loyalty that is hard to replicate. Get organized with a content calendar, set mini-deadlines, and commit to a consistent schedule, because consistency and relevancy are key to podcasting success.

Keep writing, keep dreaming, and keep creating. Your book is waiting to be born!

Ready to write your authority-building book? Book a Path to Publishing Discovery Call and take the next step to moving one step closer to writing and publishing your book!

Podcast Resources

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Get Michael’s free cheat sheet on How to Launch Your Podcast

Disclaimer: The information in this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only. The content shared by the host, guests, and any affiliates is not intended to substitute for professional legal or financial advice or any professional advice specific to your situation. Always seek the advice of a qualified professional with any questions you may have.

The opinions expressed on the show by the host or guests are those of the individuals and do not necessarily reflect the views of Unicorn Publishing Company. Unicorn Publishing Company, the host, guests, and affiliates are not responsible or liable for any decisions made by listeners or actions taken hereto based on the information discussed in this podcast. By listening to this podcast, you acknowledge and agree to release Unicorn Publishing Company, the host, affiliates, and guests from any liability.

Hey friends and future authors. This is Lynn "Elikqitie" Smargis back again with another episode of Publishing for Professionals. Thanks for listening to today's guest expert episode on how to start and grow your podcast in a way that serves your author business. But before we jump into today's show, I want to give a big welcome back to my returning listeners. Thank you so much for joining me again. I really appreciate it. And another big welcome to my new listeners.

Thanks for stopping by. Make sure to hit that like, follow, or subscribe button wherever you are watching or listening to my podcast. I'm so glad you stopped by to check it out. Please make sure to hit that follow button because if you don't, you will not get publishing information dropped straight to your podcast or YouTube channel every week. I hope you're ready to take notes, my friends, because today I am joined by expert Michael Nguyen. He's the founder of Take This Podcast, a production company that helps real estate and finance creators

grow their shows without burning out. For the past seven years, he's been behind the scenes producing and scaling some of the most trusted voices in the investing space, including Coach Carson's podcast, which now has over 130,000 YouTube subscribers, three and a half million views and 450 plus episodes. What started as a way to build a creative travel-friendly career after visiting 35 plus countries turned into a business, helping creators get their message consistent and professional.

As a real estate investor himself, Michael understands cashflow, rates, and financial independence. He focuses on growing a podcast that sees results, which means more leads, loyal audiences, and business growth, which is what we are all looking for. So he says every client is a partnership, and he loves to help creators turn big ideas into shows that they're proud of without losing their sanity along the way. I think that's the key element.

So Michael is here with us today to share how you can grow your book business with a podcast. Michael, thanks for joining me today.

Hey, Lynn, thanks for having me on and thanks everybody for listening. You teed me up so well, do I even need to talk about myself anymore?

No, it's okay. We can end the episode right here. No, I know. I know. Absolutely know that my, my, my listeners are going to want to hear what you have to say because I know we met at Think a few months back and we started chatting and you have such great insights on just like navigating and, now, navigating the podcast space. And I've been in podcasting for almost a decade, but to, to your point,

It's very easy to go insane with trying to keep up with podcast production in and of itself, right? Let alone just running a business on top of that. So let's start out by talking about podcasting. So why would someone with a book, specifically an author, want to have a podcast?

Well, this applies to anybody who wants a book, but anybody who wants their own brand, especially a book brand. I mean, you have your own brand of an author and you're trying to get more people to look at your book, possibly buy your book, right? That's the ultimate goal to try to get more sales for whatever book you're selling. And I feel like if you have a podcast, you can expand, it's an easy avenue to expand that reach. So more people.

can see, OK, this author, he or she knows what she's talking about. I trust her a little more. They have a book too? I'll consider buying it. So the podcast is mainly for exposure, that top of the funnel sales lead. And then it's a great avenue for that to get more reach, expose yourself more, and get more followers, more listeners, that can turn into more readers.

Yeah, absolutely. And so what would you say to someone who said, well, I could do a podcast, but that's a lot of work. I could just do a blog instead. Like what would you say to people who say like, want to do a blog instead of a podcast?

I'll say kind of do whatever you're interested in. I'm OK with people that just want to stick to blog and they want to, because they're authors, right? They want to write. But I feel like you're still limiting yourself to people that only read blogs, which after going to FinCon and meeting you and meeting a lot of other people, blogs are becoming not a dying art, but they're being less and less viewed on and searched on.

especially with the use of AI in today's atmosphere. But I think podcasts, it's still a very fluid form to grab listeners, to grab viewers, to stay engaged with viewers. I feel like that trumps blogs. But blogs are totally fine. I'm not saying don't do blogs if you're not interested in it.

Yeah, and one thing I found out when I started my podcast is that there are like millions of bloggers, right? But there's, and people might say, there's millions of podcasts out there. But there's actually a lot of podcasts out there that people podfaded, which means they produce like less than 10 episodes, and then they stop. So there's not a lot of like out of all of the ones that are posted, there's not a lot of active podcasters, or might be like a quarter million. So you have a way better chance of getting

ears or eyes on your podcast than you do on a blog for sure, especially like you mentioned with the use of AI. So what if someone were to come to you, Michael, and they would say, Okay, I'm an author, I've got these couple books, or I'm a new author, I want more people to get to know my personal brand, and what I'm doing. What, like, what's your process? Like, what would you what have you first start out with, like,

when someone first comes to you and they're looking to increase their brand, their brand with a podcast.

Yeah, so I feel like you have to first, and maybe you do this already in the book writing process, but like you have to first identify who do you want to talk to and who do you want to help? Because it's, yeah, it's about your brand and like, and all of that. But like, ultimately you want to help people via your podcast and provide value, whatever that is. It could be entertainment value, knowledge, education, anything like that. So you got to figure out like,

Who do you want to talk to? What's your ideal customer or your listener? How old are they? What are they doing day to day? What's their pain points? How do you think you're going to solve those pain points via the podcast? And think of a strategy and then go from there. But that's the most important. You got to identify the listener.

Yeah, and I know one of the things I noticed is that people who are who are like serial authors or people who are into publishing Typically have a really good idea of who that is because they're writing for them As compared to like just general entrepreneurs like general entrepreneurs They may not know specifically who they're talking to or they may not understand like to niche down because niching down is really important especially in podcasting so can you explain to the listeners Michael like

why you want to niche down and not be like a general audience for everyone, especially if you have a podcast.

Yeah, I mean, I don't want to be harsh, but you have to think about it, especially when you're starting out. like, no one's going to care to listen to me. Like, that's just kind of the reality of it. No one's going to care to listen. Like, you have to identify, like, what kind of value and how am I going to help people first? And then from there, you can build a foundation of like, OK, here's what the episode format is going to be like. Here's what I'm going to hear are some things I'm going to talk about during the podcast.

That's part of it too, like being consistent and constantly consistently at least producing podcast episodes on a weekly or bi-weekly or monthly basis to stay relevant, to stay engaged with your listeners.

Yeah, and I know with podcasting, especially like blogs, you can go off a couple of weeks and then post or post once a month. But with podcasting specifically, it's really important to be consistent with your production schedule. And like, if you release every week, make sure you release every week. So can you talk a little bit more about, like, if someone were to get into podcasting, like what to expect as far as the workload?

Yeah, absolutely. So.

It kind of goes into three phases with podcast productions, right? The ideation, like what are you going to talk about? Who are you helping? What topics do you want to talk about? Like what format? And then once you have that, you start recording, right? The production, the recording, which is me and you, we're talking in an interview kind of format. Or maybe you're talking by yourself about a specific topic, right?

And then after that, we go into editing. You should have some kind of editing, at least to clean up stuff or anything like that, right? Then after it's finished, you have the video file or the audio file. You have to publish it onto the platforms. And what are the platforms? Maybe YouTube, maybe Apple, maybe Spotify. Deezer's another one, Google Podcasts, anything like that.

And so when someone has a podcast, I know from experience, because this is not my first rodeo with podcasting, this specific podcast is my fifth. When you're doing solo shows, you position yourself as the expert, but when you're doing interviews like we're doing today, you can really extend and grow your network big time. So can you explain to the listeners, Michael, like what's the advantage of having a podcast as far as growing your network?

That's right. Great. Great point. Meaning, going to Fin, like conferences like FinCon, you meet so many people in the industry, other personal finance creators or investing creators, and you get to have them on your podcast. Right. And if they have a wide reach and like a wide audience, you know, you can have a lot of cross pollination of, know, some of their audience members can leak onto your podcast. I like Lynn as a guest, you know, maybe I'll check it out.

some of her content and they become a possible listener and then a loyal listener if it fits their needs.

Yeah. And I know one of the things I love doing is podcast swap. So if someone has a podcast, like we guess on each other's podcasts and that not only helps with, you know, like growing your network, but also like expanding the reach of your podcast, like you said, and then, you know, possibly getting more downloads because people listen to podcasts, will listen to more podcasts. So it's a great way to increase your listenership as well. And then let's talk also about doing solo episodes, right? On your own podcast. How does that really build authority in your space?

It's great. I mean, because you can with a solo episode, you can really focus on one particular topic that you're passionate about, that you know, that you know will help your audience. And you could just riff on that and be that person that knows every nook and cranny about this one topic and deep dive into it as much as you like. And if the viewer, the listener finds value in that, then

That's just going to be a huge trust gained, right? And huge knowledge gained for them. So it's a big one.

Yeah, there's definitely, definitely quite a few, quite a few positive benefits to having a podcast. All right, my friends, we are going to take a break right here, but when we come back, we are going to talk more with Michael about increasing your, your brand and your book visibility with a podcast. So hold tight. We'll be back shortly.

Hey friends and future authors, we are back with Michael Nguyen and his business; he's the founder of Take This Podcast. So Michael, before the break, we talked about some of the specifics like why someone would want to have a podcast and what the advantage is of having a podcast for your brand and for your book. I want to get into when you're crafting your episodes, because one of the things I know other podcasters do is they run out of material; but for an author,

who likes to write all the time, it's really hard to write out material for a podcast because you can talk about, know, if you have 15 chapters in your book, there's 15, at least 15 episodes right there that you can talk about, right? And then all the different aspects of the different information in your chapters and things like that, because most of the people who listen to this podcast are nonfiction authors. So how can an author take like their book and like to use that?

for ideas for their podcast episodes and or how could they promote their book specifically with a podcast?

Yeah, absolutely. Meaning, just a couple of episode topics you can have are just reading like excerpts of your book. And that could be really interesting, too. I know I just met a podcaster maybe last month in Chicago, and she basically hires like voice actors. She's a book writer, too. She's an author, too. And she hires voice actors to act out as the characters in her book. And it's a podcast that I forgot the name of.

I can't think of it off the top of my head. I thought that was such a cool idea. I mean, that's huge. And she gets a pretty big following of people that follow her story. And then even from her own book, she'll even write short stories, kind of like on the fly. And as the year goes by, she'll write short stories. And she'll have the same kind of voice actors acting. So it's kind of like an audio play.

Oh God, that is such a great idea because I am actually currently writing a fiction book, a fiction romance book. And that would be great to like, hire voice actors or have myself and my co-author just voice the, know, do the voices of the characters to get, know, and obviously one of the things my people might be listening to be like, I read the book, like no one's going to buy it, but you're not reading the entire book and you're obviously not reading it in order, right? So in order for someone to get all the information, they would still have to buy your book.

Exactly. Yeah, I mean, it's like a preview. Like I see on Amazon when there's a book, you see previews of pages on the book just to see what people are getting into. And if people listen to your podcast and they like what they hear and they maybe develop a relationship with the characters in the book, now, they'll want to buy the book. They'll really like it.

Yeah. And another thing too, I think people don't realize with podcasts too, is you can do a lot of really cool stuff that people love, like behind the scenes. You can talk about why I wrote the book, who it's for. You can talk about, you know, what types of pain points it's solved. Like you can talk about the writing process. There's a lot of different, behind the scenes types of things that people love that you can talk about on a podcast. And the great thing is because you control it, you can talk about any subject you want.

Exactly. Behind this news is great, too, because you could also talk about your writing process and how you developed this character. What was your inspiration for this particular character that might be a listener favorite? And you could talk about the story behind that character. And that can just tangent off into other things, too, for future content and future podcast episodes.

Yeah, absolutely. And so with a podcast production that you mentioned before, there's a lot of different components and aspects of it that you need to do every single week to keep up with it. So what are some of the biggest pain points, Michael, you take off of your clients plates when it comes to podcast production. So if someone's listening to this and they're like, well, that sounds great, Michael, but I just don't have the time to put together a podcast on a weekly basis. Because if you do like,

15 minute show once a week, it doesn't just take 15 minutes to produce that podcast because you got like the post audio, you know that the editing all that, you know, making the clips promoting the podcast. So what are some of the things that you do for your clients that really help make podcasting fun and easy instead of more work?

I appreciate the tee up, basically for every client I take on, I help them with all three phases of the production. So before we even record, you have to have some sort of content calendar and ideas for what you want to do and talk about what kind of guests you want to bring on. And we try to plan that by the quarter. So three months in advance, try to have like some sort of vague

fuzzy idea of what we want to talk about. Because that'll help you get organized and get creative about what topics I want to really talk about and what topics will help my listeners. So I help them with that. Then after they record and do all of that on their end, they'll send me the raw footage, the audio file, the video file. And I'll make sure it's polished. I'll make sure things that were talked about during the podcast that aren't really relevant in the episode are cut out.

I'll make sure it sounds good, professional. For video, I'll add b-roll. I'll add specific text or graphics or anything like that that's relevant to the episode. And then finally, once that's done, you have to upload it to the particular platforms with all of the titles, the thumbnails in place. And that's just more of an admin kind of work that people don't like to do generally. I think it's a huge value add.

for people that just want to record and then just leave it alone.

And so what about people who like, you know, say, okay, that's great. But like, I don't even know where to start with a podcast. Like, so do you help people like with the launch, like picking out their equipment and the correct equipment? Because I know there's a lot of likes, for some reason, some I don't, so we always talk about this in the podcast world. There's been a trend of people buying Blue Yetis for podcasting, which is not a great microphone to use when you're podcasting. So talk about like how you help people like

find the correct equipment and set up like their topic and their niche and all of that.

Yeah, absolutely. So if you're all the way at zero, that's totally fine. I would say in terms of equipment, you don't have to be so super fancy with it. You can get like a cheap $20 or $40 microphone and just start there. And then if you really like podcasting and you're all about it later, you can improve your stuff, but really focus on what I was saying at the beginning of the episode, like your peers.

who you wanna talk to, who you wanna like help and all of that. And then the equipment can come later, now, the Riverside or the tech, the StreamYard can come later. And I can help you through the consulting of setting it up. I can help you find the podcasting platforms, YouTube, Apple and Spotify, just to help you decide where you wanna be seen.

And so what about people who think like, yeah, I need to build a whole podcasting studio in my house.

Not really. mean, Lynn, mean, yours is pretty simple. You have a simple background. You have your mic and your headset. It doesn't have to be super fancy. As long as it's in a quiet place, like, you're doing pretty good. You're doing a lot better than a lot of podcast episodes I've edited. I mean, clean background, know, pretty quiet audio. It's fine to start with. You don't have to get too fancy with it. You do not need a studio that costs thousands of dollars.

to do that. That just doesn't work right now.

I know, I think for some reason, like, you know, people who aren't in the industry, I think that there's a fallacy of like, you have to have thousands of dollars of equipment and a whole podcast studio that's all like lined out with all the, you know, the sound editing, things like that. And I have literally been recording in my office since day one. Like there are times where I have, because I actually have joined a workspace and the workspace had a podcasting room, which was super cool. And I, if I was working at that space,

which is why there's a lot of people getting into podcasting, because it's a really easy way to get your name out there, to get your brand heard. And let's talk about one other thing that we almost forgot to talk about, Michael, and that's the trust factor with hearing someone's voice in your ear every week.

Yeah, that is so huge. I mean, audio listeners are just, they're a lot more patient than like video listeners. Video listeners have a lot less attention span than audio listeners. like a lot of audio listeners listen while they're commuting, while they're eating. And those are things that are part of our daily lives, everybody's daily lives. When, as a podcaster, you're in...

with that routine and that daily routine, they're going to associate that daily routine with your podcast. got to know, Lynn came out with a new podcast episode on Monday at 5 a.m. I got to go listen to it. And that just that trigger builds loyalty and hearing your voice and trusting what you have to say, Lynn, or any author. It's huge, so huge.

Yeah, and it's funny because one of the things I noticed when I talked to other podcasters is they say like, I'll go to a, you know, to a conference or whatever, and I'll, I'll, you know, I'll be at a workshop and I'll ask a question. And someone was like, Oh my gosh, you're the voice of the blah, blah, blah podcast because people are so used to living, like living, listening to you. And to your point, like you said,

Like that's one of the reasons why you want to be consistent with your podcast, because people are creatures of habit. And if you don't consistently produce your podcast, you'll lose listenership really fast. Even if it's 15 minutes a week, like you just need to keep whatever cadence that is. So what would your advice be, Michael, to people who are listening and be like, I do, I might want to start a podcast. Like, where do we start? Like, so what would you say to someone who was considering starting a podcast and they're listening to this episode?

Yeah. So a lot of this is on my cheat sheet, but you basically, you have to get organized at least at first with like a calendar and write like what kind of topics you want, because that that'll be the foundation of, okay, now I have the ball rolling a little bit and I have some concrete ideas of, you know, what I want to talk about. That'll help you have content to actually talk about and then B to have like a mini deadline with yourself.

to keep yourself accountable. Like you said, consistency is everything and relevancy is really everything. So if you want to have a podcast, you have to be consistent with it and decide. It can be bi-weekly, can be weekly, can be monthly, but just have a consistent schedule.

Yeah, and that's super important. Well, Michael, this has been amazing. I know my listeners definitely got a lot of really great information like if they were sitting here considering should I start a podcast? They got a lot of really great information on deciding whether you should start a podcast or not. Because I know it takes several hours a week to produce a podcast. So that's a consideration people do need to make and to be consistent with that. And that's why a lot of podcasters burn out before 10 episodes, which is called Podfade.

But I know if someone had hired you, that would be the reason why they would stay on because they're not doing all of that work. And you get to have to do the fun part, which is record the episodes and then hand it off to someone like you who does all the background work.

Exactly, exactly. It's an investment to have somebody, a partner with you, helping you with all of the other stuff that maybe you don't want to do, or it just takes too much time and effort. And it kind of takes you away from what you really want to do. You want to record, you want to find other listeners, you want to find other readers.

Yeah, and that's one of the things with ROI, right? Like we need to see how much money we're making an hour and is it worth our time to do all that work ourselves? And if it's not handed over to a professional like you, Michael, this has been fantastic. Let people know. So for people who are listening to audio , I will put this in the show notes. I've had the spider up it let people know where they can find you if they're looking at hiring you for a service or if you offer free consultation.

Yeah, absolutely. All of my information where all of my services, my past work and all of that, you can find that at www.takethispodcast.com and it has everything you need.

Awesome sauce. Well, friends, you are considering getting a podcast, definitely check out Michael's website, book him for a discovery call. Michael is super easy to work with and is a professional. And I love chatting with Michael. Every time we have a conversation, it's always a great one. Michael, thank you so much for coming on today and sharing your expertise with my listeners. I know they got a lot out of this.

Yeah, thanks, Lin. I appreciate it and maybe see you again soon.

Awesome. All right, friends, remember, I love to work with clients and authors to get past their mindset, writing, and publishing hurdles so authors can have a smooth publishing pathway and be confident in self-publishing their nonfiction books. If you're not sure where to start, go to writeforyou.me and book your complimentary discovery call today. I'm ready to stand by your side and walk you through your publishing process. Until next week, this is Lynn "Elikqitie" reminding you to keep writing,

Keep dreaming and keep creating. Your book is waiting to be born.