Making Podcasts Pay with Sachit Gupta

Sachit Gupta has been able to assist some of the biggest podcasters in the world - all without being an influencer himself. By helping secure sponsorships and in other ways, he increases their income - which in turn becomes the source of his income. In this interview you’ll hear about his early desire to come to the US to study, and the early experiences that formed him into the entrepreneur he is today, like:

How he helped started one of Carnegie Mellon University’s biggest fundraisers, full of running, eating donuts, and more running
Why he knew from the moment he stepped into his first job and saw cubicles, that it wasn’t the life he wanted to lead
How he almost ran out of money in Thailand
How easy it was to get his first client, and how hard it was to get more
Why a dislocated shoulder led him temporarily back to end

Sachit’s first client was blogger Sebastian Marshall. But from there he spent a long while trying to get more clients - including offering to work for free, in order to learn. He struggled for a long time, both looking for a job and for clients. Eventually he found out about Andrew Warner and decided he wanted to work with him. Andrew is the hosts of the podcast at Mixergy.com, and Sachit decided he wanted to work with him. While they hit it off well,  Andrew had no consistent work for him - until he needed some bead bracelets made. And Sachit willingly did it, just to get a chance. From there, the work kept coming. Through a cousin, he also came across Restless Energy Drinks in India, who did ads on YouTube, but didn’t have any established marketing beyond that. Sachit again offered his services, to show off what he could do for them. There he applied some basic marketing principles:

Build your own platform through an email list.
Ask people to share on social media, when you thank them for joining the list

When Andrew was about to ditch sponsorship because it was complex, Sachit stepped in and agreed to work on a commission basis. Within two months they had a new sponsor, at twice the rate of older sponsors. Suddenly in July of 2015, things began coming together - Andrew, with Sachit’s help, was able to close more in sponsorship deals in a day, than they had in the entire previous year. At this point, Sachit was still divided doing many different things, but decided he needed to be more focused on just helping content creators grow their audience. Narrowing his focus and understanding helped him to improve what he offered and grow. His focus is to help YouTubers and podcasters, as well as other content creators, to generate revenue and to scale up from where they are currently. Sachit is always focused on uncovering what the client needs, and figuring out how he can help them. Sachit has also put together an 8-week program called “Marketing Machines” which guides users through the same process that he goes through with private clients. His advice for starting out as an entrepreneur:

Don’t expect everything to come quickly
Have the grit to stick with it and not give up, even in the tough times

Contact Sachit Email: Sg [at] sgmedialabs [dot] com LinkedIn

Book Recommendation Recession-Proof Graduate 

Site Mentioned SG Media Labs mixergy.com