Seth Godin on Why You Should Start a Podcast

It’s the same reason you should start a blog, newsletter, or any public, creative outlet for yourself.

Here’s Seth (from his podcast, of course):

“The middlemen have not yet come along that make it financially feasible for the typical person to have a podcast. That’s not why you should do it. You shouldn’t do it because you want to sell ads, because you won’t. You should do it because the craft of talking to that smallest viable audience will enrich your life and may help other areas of your business life go forward.”

Or as Pat Flynn once put it:

“If you were to create a podcast — and you only have 200 people listening, for example — imagine a room full of 200 people, that you’re standing in front of, and they’ve come there to see you and listen you and listen to your message. And this happens every single week. That really puts that 200 people in perspective."

A decade ago, speaking in front of hundreds of people every week would have been considered impressive, for the skills involved alone. It was the stuff of “B” celebrities.

Now, anyone can do it. But there are relatively few active podcasts out there. We hear about podcasts in the millions, but only a small fraction of those are still being published regularly.

Why aren’t more people taking advantage of the opportunity? It’s not going to be this way forever.