Longtime podcaster (Profitable Podcasting, Podcast Tools and Marketing Online Live) and author Paul Colligan informs us that he is launching the second round of his Podcast Secrets series with a paid ($20) preview call the evening of April 2.  One of the key points to be covered in the preview call is Colligan’s strong argument that “podcasting is ideal for ‘recession-proofing’ an online business.” The first round of the Podcast Secrets workshop, in 2007, boasted 150 students.

I asked Paul to explain more about the preview call and the class.

Elisabeth McLaury Lewin: I looked at the page.  Why isn’t it available by podcast?

Paul Colligan: [laughs] Elisabeth, come on, you know me better than that.  The Premium Podcast feed with a recording of the event will be released later that night to everyone who bought the call.  We’ll email directions after the live event – we just want as many as possible to join us for that live groove.

Elisabeth McLaury Lewin: What’s the purpose of the Podcast Secrets class?

Paul Colligan: There are podcasters who want to go full time.  There are content producers who want to explore delivery down the podcast channel.  It seems like everyone teaches you how to pick the perfect USB microphone and tweak WordPress – but nobody is teaching the business of self-produced content.  There are real business models leveraging these tools and we’ll show you how it all comes together.  Alex [Mandossian] and I both make our livings selling content online.  There are models for doing this that work (quite well), and Podcast Secrets is about showing others what we’ve learned along the way.

Elisabeth McLaury Lewin: I saw you mention this phrase a several times. What is the “Podcast Monetization Roadmap?”

Paul Colligan: We introduced the concept in “The Business Podcasting Bible” and have been teaching it ever since.  It’s a 6-step process to podcast monetization.  It builds from what we call “strategy casting” (not launching until you have a plan) through “funnel casting” (integrating your podcast into your business funnel, not appending a podcast strategy onto what you’re already doing) with four other steps along the way.  We teach the “roadmap” model in the preview call, so that participants grasp the concept of how this can all be done.  Some of the participants from the preview call opt to join us for the full program, others take the 2-hour plus training and make what they can from it.