9/11 was a sad state of affairs, definitely something we’ll never forget around the world, especially here in the United States. Let it not go down as the start of the worst decade ever, let it go down as an eye opening “we are not the most powerful thing on earth” epiphany. There are many lessons to be learned in the 9/11 attack and it should go down as one of the biggest lessons and teachings in the history of the United States since the Civil War. Turn the bad into the good and walk away smarter, more aware and more responsive.

The economic issue is bad, lots of people are out of work and lots of great businesses have gone away. Is this the worst thing ever? No, every country (including our own) goes through economic turmoil and this downfall brings some of the best business births in history. Name a huge company full of success and you’ll probably see that it was born out of economic crisis and turmoil. Microsoft is a great example as is Amazon and so many others. Just like a wildfire, sometimes great things grow from the burned charred remains of what was left to die.

The economy is great for new start ups to grow and find awesome talent in industries with many intelligent folks out of a job. Smart people will always be needed and many will plant seeds of new industrial growth in the years to come. What will be the next big business boom to come out of this economic crisis? Perhaps those little “twitter” guys? Facebook? NewEgg? Battery powered cars? Fuel cells? Cure for cancer? So many small companies growing in the economic downturn, I can’t wait to see what phoenix rises from the ashes.

For myself, this is the perfect time to start a little video network business. I’ve got plenty of time to grow my audience while the rest of the world goes “oh my gosh, what are we going to do!?” While those big businesses struggle to keep their investors happy, I’ll be growing my smaller business so that when money floods back into the economy, I’ll have companies with “new money” asking to advertise on the shows.

To Time Magazine, I say turn that frown upside down. Make lemonade out of those lemons, things can be a lot worse and I think we’ve done very good in terms of suffering through some of the issues we face. A country that goes through such struggles grows stronger and more wiser in the end. Many countries could have crumbled under the stress, governments could have been overthrown during the chaos, but we stood strong and our people continue to spark life into the economy with good ideas, creative innovations and a can-do attitude.

Keep your can-do attitude and pay less attention to the dramatic news headlines.

This can be a huge hurtle for college kids that are looking to jump into an industry. Podcasting is a great springboard to build a resume and show a future employer that you don’t just wait at home for the call backs, but work the industry to better yourself and others. Although podcasting is relatively inexpensive and almost anyone can sit down and figure it out, very few will attempt to do it and that can make you different. Those that have found themselves recently unemployed can share their experiences and lessons in their career with those around them.

Does giving information away for free allow others to absorb the information and take away potential jobs from you? Potentially, but when they go up against you in an interview who is better suited? The one that learned it from a podcaster or the host of the show? Think about it. You’re helping them, but you were the one that went out of your way to build a show from scratch to present to the masses.

There are thousands upon thousands of podcasts on the Internet, many which are bad and a few that excel at what they attempt to deliver. You don’t have to be a rockstar, web celebrity or genius to find yourself a niche in a market. The goal isn’t to build the next podcasting empire, it’s to show employers and yourself that you won’t take being jobless sitting down. What sounds better to an employer, the individual that has been job hunting for months and just can’t find anything or an individual who hunts for jobs while creating their own “radio show” about the industry.

Your podcast might be on recent news and events in the industry or perhaps an education show where you spread your current knowledge to others. You don’t have to have a PhD or a masters of business to define a space for yourself; podcasters are individuals that have found a passion for a topic and want to bring that passion to others.

Think of podcasting as a gateway to a career in the field you’ve worked or wish to work. You can use it as a bridge to gap the sea of humanity and sameness to one of individual drive and motivation. Employers want career driven people that show strength and desire to learn new topics and to share their knowledge with a strong team of people. Podcasters grow to have key qualities needed for such a job: public speaking, presentation skills, motivation, planning, up-to-date knowledge and the ability to complete a project without micromanagement.

A podcaster plans shows in advance, releases on scheduled intervals and provides content that is needed or desired by others while constantly watching trends, fielding questions and learning along the way. That sounds like the template to a quality employee, doesn’t it?

You don’t need a large budget to start your first podcast, especially if you’re doing it alone or with a few local folks. Getting yourself a microphone and, optionally a mixer, is a great way to start to build a high quality audio show. With a budget of under $200 and a mildly powerful PC/Mac you can setup a show. You may opt to find a free service to host the audio content or host it on a small pay service like Libsyn.

The world needs more podcasters to talk about political science, software development, web design, art, photography, childrens programming and so many other great fields of study. A school teacher looking to find a job can start up a show to entertain younger children or teach them topics to advance their learning in school. The options for podcast topics are endless.

So, what are you doing in your free time? Perhaps you should focus a bit more on being outstanding.

You hear about sites that take off and get thousands of users overnight, before they know it the owners are getting millions of unique users hitting their site and the world is their oyster. Okay, now let’s talk about everyone else, the 99% of the population of bloggers, podcasters and video producers. Unless you own a successful brand or property with thousands of dedicated fans, you’re starting at ground zero like myself.

Prepare yourself for many nights and weekends working on your personal brand and website. Making money on advertising occurs when you can show advertisers “impressions” on your properties and your new property may be receiving under twenty visitors a day even if you’re pushing one to three daily pieces of content; it’s a slow process. Video bloggers are worse off because all their awesome content is unsearchable–it’s not textual. They’ve got to work hard, craft great headline articles and start supporting blogs and articles to support their effort to bring in organic searches. It’s possible but it takes time.

I’ve found very few working shortcuts to getting seen as a video podcaster and audio podcaster. There are no fast ways to be number-one in a search engine or ranking on the top podcasts in a podcast directory aside from paid advertising or getting a web celebrity to pimp your show. You can setup twitter accounts, facebook fan pages and accounts on all the trendy social network systems on the Internet and that won’t make your show popular until you understand how to use the tools most effectively. You can buy consulting for a hefty fee or do what I did: follow a few other brands that are doing it successfully and mimic their behavior, that’s not a shortcut, that’s an educational experience.

Spend less time looking for the shortest route to success and spend more time pumping out quality content, watching others performing social networking techniques and being an all-around normal guy or gal with the drive and passion for success. Let people know about what you’re doing and why you’re confident it’s a successful venture.

Trust In Yourself

When producing audio and video content, there is only one person you can trust to get the job done: yourself.

When most of your salary is being paid in blood, sweat and tears you’re going to find very few people want to work with you in the effort. Unless you can find co-hosts, guest audio speakers or a video crew of dedicated passionate individuals, you’re going to be doing most of your work alone. Creating a great audio show is only as good as the participants in the show. You may have the best idea in the world along with a great chemistry with your fellow podcasters but if they decided to leave, lose interest or “no show” for a few episodes, where does that leave yours how and your audience? Are they going to work those same nights and weekends to promote the production you’ve all been working so hard on?

I’ve found the most reliable thing to do is build a list of friends that are comfortable on camera (or on a mic) and get as many to show up to the shows as possible. Don’t trust any one individual to have the same drive and interests as yourself but, as a whole, you’ve got enough folks to always make the show. Having a pool of individuals to call upon (much like they do on This Week in Tech), then you can always have a successful broadcast.

Lessons of the day: Only trust yourself to get the job done and plan on working your ass off to get there. Don’t hire SEO experts, social media professionals and all that crap; learn the techniques yourself using articles and free editorials on the Net. Teach yourself how to be successful, don’t expect others to do it for you.

If you live near a big city, it’s usually easier to find some folks in the industry you’re trying to dominate with video and audio content. For instance, I’m working to build a cocktail show from the ground up and I’ve build a good roll of PR folks, industry leaders and distributors who are ready and willing to send me content in the form of spirit samples. They’re dedicated to your cause because they’re hoping you can show their products off in your content. This is a good give-and-take relationship but that’s about where the line is drawn and you’re still only a name.

A launch event last week in Boston gave me the opportunity to shake a few hands. I’m 45-minutes out of Boston but making the trip was well worth the time and effort. I met up with some folks I’ve talked with in the industry and build some new relationships with folks that I didn’t know existed before the event.

Meeting folks in person allows you to establish a stronger relationship. Hitting parties and industry gatherings will give you new exposure to journalists and bloggers to which you can swap “business cards.” Saying, “hi I’m Derrick from everydaydrinkers.tv” isn’t good enough; do you want them to remember you among all the other party gatherers? If so, you’ll want to toss them your card with contact information on it. After the event they’ll head home and toss all the business cards they gathered on the coffee table for later viewing. You want to be part of that list otherwise they’re not going to remember “that guy” they met at the show.

A week after the event the e-mails will start to come in saying, “nice meeting you last week, love your website.” Some folks may have never heard of you before while others could have seen you in passing while working in the industry. Of course, you’ll know a few people from “chatting” over e-mail or Twitter direct-messages but now there is a greater connection: you’re a real person. The experience of a five minute chat at an event is all that is needed to begin to grow a new contact. Next time you hit an event you may see them again and can shake with a familiar grasp.

During the event you may pickup a few new folks that have never heard of your show. This goes back to my preaching about building your relationships one person at a time. If you give away one business card at an event and they take a look at your website, you’ve established a new potential fan. Even public relations folks in the industry can become fans of your content for more than just pimping their products. I’ve got many PR agencies that watch every show I produce because they like the content, quality and it’s relevant to their industry. PR agents are typically passionate about the industry they’re in, this is what keeps them going to work each day and your content brings them closer to their own world.

Many folks may live far away from the big city and find it much more challenging to get out to launch parties, meet up and all the good human gathering that occurs in our social circles. For those folks (much like myself) plan to hit two events a year that have large gatherings where you can do a full year of meetings in a single day. Make yourself known, stand out, print up some business cards and spread the love with as many people as you can shake hands.

It may cost you $30 to head to staples to print out a few hundred basic business cards. If it has your domain, name and contact information on the card then you’ve done your job right for very little cash out of pocket. It is important to make those connections and let a small group of folks in your industry know you’re a human and not just a voice. Who knows, you may establish some great relationships beyond a simple ‘tweet’.

When it comes to building your “celebrity” presence on the Internet, you can go about it two ways: hard work and struggle or kissing up to other internet celebrities. Getting into the web celeb circle can be a real bitch if you’re not one of “the boys” and they’re really not looking to sign anyone up as friends “just because.” However, if you continue to tell every web celeb you see just how awesome they are, they may eventually notice you.

I don’t mind kissing a little ass to get around but I also have my own personal ideas of respect. Hard work pays off and building a list of friends that actually like you on a genuine level appeals to my personality. Building real relationships creates a stronger bond with people that will be there for you while kissing people’s asses only gets you as far as they want you to go. If I meet a few Internet celebrities along the way I can tell them of my hard work and struggle with truthfulness and everyone can respect it.

Hopefully, whatever decision you make when you climb the latter of recognition and success you can go to bed satisfied with the work you did to get there. Struggle, hardwork and a final win is how I want to be remembered, you?

Screw the get rich quick method, I think you’ll be more valuable making some friendly contacts in the industry of your choice. Recently, I watched a video on how you can make money on twitter in a “fully automated” fashion selling who knows what to who knows who for whatever cost — really? There is no passion or challenge, it’s all about finding something exploitable and selling it to anyone your automated bots can find.

I’m not really jealous of the technique that “anyone can do” (so could I, right?) but I am blown away by those that will try the techniques. Most will fail and come out of the experience unchanged and lighter in pocket. The only person getting rich quick is the one taking your money to sell you the techniques that they say they’ve learned. Here is an idea, find an industry you’re passionate about and see if you can find a way to make your own techniques and money making systems.

Here is my modest little technique that seems to work okay: establish relationships with people in your industry. You’re no doubt smaller than most of them so you’re going to have to be ready to give some of your services away for free in order to show them you’re serious. In my video podcasting studio, I’ll record an episode of Common Man Cocktails with a product that I’ve been given (if it works as advertised) and give them free exposure to my viewers.

Why wouldn’t I take the aggressive route and ask them to pay me for the exposure? Because I’d like them to see the results of what I can do, show off my techniques and give them a taste for how successful their product can be in my own brand. No doubt I’ll ask them to sponsor an episode in the future, but what trust have I built if I started by asking for money up front? What trust have I built with my viewers if they find out I’m only pitching an item because they paid me to do so?

As the little guy, you’re going to have to admit to yourself that you’re a nobody with no influence outside of your own audience. You’re building your audience and your brand but you’re going to want others to help you along the way; those friends you establish will come back to reward you later.

Perhaps you show off a product on your audio/video show and send it off to the makers of the product. They may give you a nod and a big ol’ “thank you” or they might enjoy the work you did and spread your video to their friends in the industry along with their own customers. That free exposure you gave them can come back to you ten fold with new viewership and exposure.

Who knows, a few months later that new friendly brand may ask to work together no future partnerships. What’s the risk? Nothing but a bit of work on your side, for free, in hopes of establishing stronger relationships. Give it a try.

While old school media is a one-way conversation, you’ve got a tough job to do when it comes to answering all those e-mails and blog post comments. You may want to establish a dialog with each user independently to really add focus to their existence and be more direct on answering their questions. This can be time consuming and, frankly, hard work but you owe it to them to make the effort as it will strengthen their bonded relationship to your show.

Your viewers are probably used to old school media where they really become fans with the host(s) of the show but can never contact the person directly. In the new world way of doing media, the minute you shoot them back an e-mail, they’ll respect you more and identify more with you as an individual.

It’s important to remember that folks contacting you directly via e-mail, web contact forums or by posting on your website have taken time out of their day to say hello. The least you owe them is a little time to do the same, no?

Looking through iTunes, I can find tons of untapped niche markets that could bring old advertisers to new media. Want to test the waters before you start down the road of video podcasting? Start a blog.

This sounds like old school marketing but this is your petri dish to start building relationships with companys and PR agencies. If you become a small “professional” in your field of blogging, from yarn, wood, tools, clocks to gardening you’ll start receiving e-mails asking to post reviews, news and events for people in the industry. Once you grab a few PR agencies and establish relationships with them, they’ll send you press releases, product demonstrations and perhaps hook you up with interviews with company owners.

As you build your reputation over the course of three to six months you can start experimenting with some video content as you roll your blog into a vlog. Now, you can push out new shows and begin to build a small viewership of a few dozen or a few hundred downloads. Once you’ve got your fan base started, four months after producing some video shows and providing evidence that people care enough to come back and watch your episodes, you can start pitching to sponsors.

Some people will say you need 1,000 to 2,000 views a day to get sponsorship but that’s highly dependent on your industry. You can get sponsorship with as low as 450 views per show if you price it right and provide content that’s so niche and specific that your viewers actually desire the products of your sponsor.

Using a $30.00 CPM ($30 per 1,000 viewers) model, you can sell a sponsor a full episode of your video show for around $12 (considering you don’t have 1,000 viewers yet) and still get them interested. Why? Because $12 to gain 450 highly focused eyes on a brand is huge value to anyone that understands new media. Plus, when six months down the line their ad is still in the old video and new viewers typically drive through old archives to catch up and see what you have covered in the past. Their old sponsorship grows with the audience of your show, long after they paid the measly $12.

Companies will spend millions of dollars to reach 2% of a large pool of viewership. You’re just asking for $12 to gain 100% attention of the viewership pool, sounds tempting, no? A single episode will not build huge brand awareness and your sponsor knows this; they will buy a block of episodes to test the waters. Realistically, without at least three to four episodes on your show there is no way to track the impact. So, even if they decide not to renew, they’re probably already in it for $36 to $48 which goes into your pocket for your hard work.

It is hard work. Don’t expect to toss your mug on a camera and get people to throw money your way. You’re going to have to prove to them that you’re energetic, consistent, trustworthy and have the passion to get the job done. Of course, $12 an episode isn’t going to make you rich, but everyone has to start somewhere.

You start at the bottom and work your way to the top. If you think there is an easier way, show us. Otherwise, get out there and produce great content and watch your community grow.

Gary is having a child soon and this is a life changing event; beautiful and fun but changing all the same. Add to that the popularity of his show, speaking gigs and all the work that goes into the day-to-day life of retail, there are only so many hours in the day — there is only one Gary. Gary preaches both “love your family” along with “love your job” and most of all “hustle” but too much of any one thing and something has to give.

The big “Gary V” has been a role model for the little guy growing a brand and becoming a “web celebrity” (but not an A list celebrity mind you!) I’ll admit it, I learned a lot from watching Wine Library TV and used the format to launch EverydayDrinkers.tv which is much like a WLTV for cocktails. Many of my viewers have said “so, you’re an @GaryVee fan aren’t you?” However, I’ve learned a lot from Rhed Pixel as well, in relation to lighting, video formats and how to launch a show but people only see the signature “Gary V” in the content. This is because Gary’s shares many of the same qualities that I’ve lived with for years: passion, intensity and the need to meet your own standards and goals.

He says “hustle,” but I believe the next few months we’ll see less e-mail responses from him along with a slight slow down in his social media presence. I believe this is why he’s using user comments on his latest episodes, to redirect some of the more difficult responsiblities of responding to every person by allowing a few key viewers their 5-seconds of fame on his show. This will allow people to “forget” the lack of e-mail responses by trying to get their commet listed on the show. It also helps inprove the quality of comments because “you rock” isn’t a worthy show shout out.

I think he’ll begin answering the most meaningful of e-mails while simply reading the others (without responses) or farming out an in-house e-mail reader to help him out with day-to-date e-mail. Perhaps he’ll focus more on mass mailing community news letters to keep in touch with people through news letters, thus avoiding the single-instance replies. He’s already mentioned the difficulty he’s had keeping up with e-mails on twitter.

As his fame grows he’ll hit the same brick wall Leo Laporte hit. Niche markets can still have thousands upon thousands of viewers and subscribers – one man cannot carry the world upon his own shoulders. When you breech 100,000 viewers and your inbox is constantly full of 1000 new e-mails, what can you do? You need to take a realistic view and realize you can’t please everyone all of the time.

I’ve read some of the comments, had a presence in some of the UStream live broadcasts and I see a pattern: a large portion of his fans do nothing more than scream “you rock” or become the first to post about how right he is or that he’s “the man.” That’s wonderful, fans are great for your show and your ego but you really don’t have to respond to them all, do you?

We’ve seen this happen with small music bands as well (anyone remember when Dave Mathews used to let you plug into his sound board for personal recordings?). Like a brand, Gary and his products will grow and he’ll find it harder and harder to touch every single soul along the way. Having a child arriving and “loving his family,” Gary is going to have to make some hard decisions in life, do you respond to another 1000 emails and “hustle” or do you rock your baby to bed instead?

Success is a bitch. But I’m happy for him just the same.

PR agencies can be your friend. They’re more than willing to ship you products for free to get the word out about the products they are marketing. You’re the public and their public relations so it’s their job to be willing to work with you to promote their brands. They won’t pay you, but they’ll send you samples of the products they’re representing in order to gain more exposure through you.

Establishing relationships with PR agencies give you the chance to get new press releases on products in your niche, new product launch information, high resolution press kits and the potential for free products to test drive. Why would you avoid passing up such opportunities?