March 28, 2024

You’re the Boss Blog: How Pat Flynn Uses Podcasting to Build His Business

Pat Flynn: Many of his listeners use iTunes as a search engine.Courtesy of the Smart Passive Income podcast. Pat Flynn: Many of his listeners use iTunes as a search engine.

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Generating revenue along with the buzz.

Pat Flynn lost his job as an architect in the fall of 2008. Four years later, Mr. Flynn, who is 29, has one of the top business podcasts on iTunes. It’s called the Smart Passive Income Podcast, and it offers information and advice about online marketing and sales strategies.

Introduced in July 2010, the podcast has been downloaded more than two million times and its listeners have given it more than 500 five-star ratings. Mr. Flynn consistently ranks in the top 10 business podcasts on iTunes, including, at one point, earning a second place spot behind The Dave Ramsey Show (iTunes doesn’t explain how it ranks podcasts).

There are far too many self-proclaimed gurus of online marketing, but Mr. Flynn seems to have figured out some things that could help just about any small business.

It was early in 2008, before he was laid off, that Mr. Flynn first experienced the power of the Internet. While studying for the LEED exam, which certifies knowledge of green building practices, he created a blog where he posted charts, cheat sheets, and notes from reference guides. Months later, he found out that more than 10,000 people were visiting his site each day.

With that level of traffic, he decided to turn the blog into a business to help architects and other building industry professionals pass the exam. After adding more content to the Web site, he wrote and published an e-book study guide for the test and started selling it to his Web visitors. After 30 days, he had taken in $7,905.00, and he was starting to think  that getting laid off may have been the best thing that had ever happened to him. In his first year running his online business, he says he made $203,219.04 (as he reports  in his annual passive income report). “I was amazed that a real business could be created by just providing helpful information,” he said.

And that inspired him to start a new Web site, called the Smart Passive Income Blog, in which he explained how he had built the business. “It started out with me creating a site to tell people about how I made passive income with my LEED exam Web site,” he said, “but then I started to explore other ways to make money online and share my experiences.”

For example, he built a niche Web site for the security-guard-training industry and wrote a 20-part series of blogs explaining how he did it. One of his lessons is that he gives his content away free and makes money by selling ads and training courses. When it comes to selling on the Internet, he said, “the best sales pitch is no sales pitch at all.”

As his traffic grew, he decided to introduce a podcast to reach even more people. He had been listening to podcasts for more than three years. “The idea of learning as you go really intrigued me,” he said, “and so each week, in the car to and from work, at the gym, and even on train rides, I’d listen to 15 to 20 hours of audio, and I was always learning something new.”

In the summer of 2010, Mr. Flynn released the first session of The Smart Passive Income Podcast, as an extension of his then two-year-old blog, which, at that time, had about 7,500 subscribers. “It’s a bit technical to set up a podcast,” he said. “It involves first recording an episode, tagging it with the appropriate data — such as show name, host, episode number, category, etc., uploading it onto a server and then publishing it onto a Web site and directing that feed to a particular directory or player. What’s nice is that once you set it up, all you have to worry about is creating new shows. The directories, such as iTunes, will update automatically when you publish a new episode.”

Anyone can post a podcast on iTunes, Mr. Flynn said, but it’s imperative that you stay focused on your audience. “It all comes down to producing a high-quality podcast that provides some sort of value to its listeners, whether it’s entertainment value, education, whatever.” Not surprisingly, he has created a free podcasting tutorial, complete with six step-by-step training videos to help anyone get a podcast up and running.

Early on, he says, he spent about $400 on podcasting equipment, including a microphone, but beyond that he had everything else he needed. He uses Garageband software, which came with his iMac, to record his episodes. “If you’re on a PC, you can download free audio-editing software called Audacity, which works just as well as Garageband,” he said.

Today, Mr. Flynn’s shows run between 45 minutes and an hour and are posted twice weekly. He introduces himself at the beginning and provides the show number. An announcer gives a short intro with music, and Mr. Flynn offers a brief summary of what he’s going to cover. His guests have included well-known entrepreneurs and bloggers.

To promote the podcast, Mr. Flynn has syndicated his show through Stitcher, a popular podcasting directory that is available primarily on mobile platforms. But iTunes drives most of his traffic. “Itunes is also a search engine,” he said, “so if the title of your podcast, the description, and the title of the episodes are similar to what keywords people are typing into iTunes, you have a good chance of being found. You can easily find my podcast, for example, by typing in ‘blogging’ or ‘online business’ in the search field in iTunes.”

In part because Mr. Flynn often tells his podcast listeners to go to his blog for additional information, links or show notes, the blog now has more than 50,000 subscribers. The podcast has helped build  an audience for Smart Passive Income videos, an e-newsletter and an e-book.

“I just enjoyed the process and made sure that I put a lot of care into every single minute of my podcast,” he said. “They say that time flies when you’re having fun, well, results happen much faster when you’re having fun, too.”

Melinda Emerson is founder and chief executive of Quintessence Multimedia, a social media strategy and content development firm. You can follow her on Twitter.

Article source: http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/30/how-pat-flynn-uses-podcasting-to-build-his-business/?partner=rss&emc=rss

DealBook: Private Equity Firms Stimulate Earnings and Deals in Post-Revolution Egypt

Abraaj Capital bought a stake in AlBorg Laboratories in May 2008, and the Egyptian medical testing company has performed surprisingly well.Abraaj CapitalAbraaj Capital bought a stake in AlBorg Laboratories in May 2008, and the Egyptian medical testing company has performed surprisingly well.

DUBAI — After Abraaj Capital bought a stake in AlBorg Laboratories in May 2008, the Dubai-based private equity firm braced for a rough ride. Over the next four years, AlBorg, an Egyptian medical testing company, weathered the global financial crisis, the economic downturn and the revolutions that swept the Mideast.

When the turmoil faded, Abraaj was shocked with the results. AlBorg had not only emerged unscathed — it emerged stronger. In the first half of 2012, the company’s earnings rose 30 percent, according to Abraaj.

“Certain sectors, especially health care, have experienced a renaissance of sorts since the dust settled post-revolution in Egypt,” said Ahmed Badreldin, the co-head of large cap private equity at Abraaj Capital. “These sectors are performing surprisingly, unexpectedly well, especially in the first quarter of 2012.”

Such pockets of strength are increasingly common across the private equity landscape in Egypt, traditionally one of the biggest markets for Mideast buyouts. And industry professionals are hoping that the trend will persist, reviving the moribund deal-making environment in the region.

Amid the tumult in recent years, big investors damped their expectations for Egypt, figuring their companies would be lucky to notch single-digit gains, if any at all. But last year, a number of private equity-owned businesses in the country increased their earnings by 40 percent or more, with consumer-oriented companies showing the most resilience.

In some ways, the companies are benefiting from the Arab Spring. In 2011, the Egyptian government increased salaries and introduced a minimum wage. With increased purchasing power, the country recorded record high sales in consumer goods, especially in the first few months of 2012.

Private equity is broadly betting on the rise of the middle class — and the demand for power, food, health care and goods that comes with it.

Eastgate Capital, the private equity arm of the Saudi bank, NCB Capital, bought the jewelry firm L’Azurde, a subsidiary of a Saudi company in 2008, and took a $40 million stake in the generic drug maker Sigma, the next year. The firm’s portfolio of Egyptian companies, according to Eastgate, increased earnings by roughly 40 percent this year, far exceeding expectations of 5 percent to 10 percent.

“This growth is driven by robust consumer spending, supported by the large population and increase in salaries post-revolution,” said Nasr-Eddine Benaissa, managing partner of Eastgate Capital Group.

“From a practitioner’s point of view, we just have to see how the political situation plays out,” he added. “And if stability is achieved, it’s very likely that Egypt will regain its reputation as a key private equity market.”

Amid the tumult, private equity companies have had to be opportunistic to drive earnings at their companies. Some have turned to deal-making. AlBorg Laboratories bought a stake in a Sudanese company, Ultralabs, earlier this year, capitalizing on weakness in the region.

Private equity firms have also focused on operations. Sigma, one of Eastgate’s portfolio companies, expanded geographically and opened a state-of-the-art manufacturing plant in Egypt. To help AlBorg navigate the uprisings, Abraaj introduced a new management team and posted two executives from its firm to support the transition.

“One of the key ways that we were able to help AlBorg increase revenues is by paying attention to human capital, which has traditionally been a bottleneck in Egypt,” said Mr. Badreldin.

Not all sectors are performing well. Tourism, real estate, construction and other cyclical sectors influenced by economic and political instability have been struggling. “Real estate, nobody wants to touch because our private equity clients feel that prices peaked over the last few years and the political outlook is still uncertain,” said Omar Bassiouny, head of mergers and acquisitions at the law firm, DLA Matouk Bassiouny.

The market conditions also remain shaky, making it difficult for private equity firms to sell companies or take them public. In July, Citadel Capital canceled its plans to sell National Petroleum.

But private equity firms are hoping to leverage the new strength in their portfolios to raise money and make more deals.

When the financial crisis hit in 2008, deals were suspended, firms retrenched, and investors grew cautious. While activity slowly returned in 2010, it all but dried up the following year during the Arab Spring, and even the most risk-tolerant investors sat on the sidelines.

“When it comes to new private equity acquisitions, there is that ‘wait and see’ attitude about the environment, and for financing to become available,” said Ahmed Heikal, chairman of the Egyptian private equity firm Citadel Capital.

Fund-raising efforts have slumped, too. In the first half of 2012, private equity firms raised just $96 million, according to data from the Emerging Markets Private Equity Association.

For now, private equity firms are focused on the small areas of opportunity, mainly health care and infrastructure. In April, the Lebanon-based EuroMena Fund bought a 51 percent stake in Al-Oyoun Al Dawali Hospital, worth $11 million. In June, the Egyptian Refinery Company secured $1.1 billion in equity financing from a consortium of investors, including the private equity firm Citadel Capital and InfraMed, a fund focused on Egypt.

“My expectations at the end of last year were very different: no stability, lots of turmoil, not exactly attractive for private equity funds,” said Mr. Bassiouny. “I was pleasantly wrong about that.”

A version of this article appeared in print on 08/24/2012, on page B5 of the NewYork edition with the headline: Private Equity Stimulates Sectors in Post-Revolution Egypt.

Article source: http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/08/23/private-equity-firms-stimulate-earnings-and-deals-in-post-revolution-egypt/?partner=rss&emc=rss