“How to Become the Center of Influence Through Super Podcasting” with Jonathan Levi of the SuperHuman Academy Podcast
As part of my series of interviews about “How to Become the Center of Influence Through Podcasting”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Jonathan Levi. Jonathan is an experienced entrepreneur, angel investor, podcast host and Lifehacker from Silicon Valley. He grew his luxury car parts business into one of Inc’s 5000 fastest growing companies in America before selling it at the age of 23 to soon become one of the top-performing instructors on Udemy, with his course Become a SuperLearner® (now retired) earning him over 60,000 students. He has since snowballed this success into the launch of his own brand and platform, SuperHuman Academy, which produces such products as the award-winning SuperHuman Academy Podcast (3 million+ downloads) and numerous online courses.
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Can you tell us the “backstory” about why or how you got started as a podcaster?
After a couple of years of building our audience through online courses, I realized that I really wanted to branch out, and cover additional topics on the periphery of our topic. I was passionate about health and life hacking and wanted to learn more. I had been interviewed on some podcasts and thought it was a ton of fun, so I decided to try my hand at it! A huge motivator for me was actually not the “exposure” or celebrity of being a well-known podcaster, but actually the prospect of interviewing and learning directly from the thought leaders and experts that I most admire.
I didn’t know anything about podcasting, but I knew how to learn — after all, that’s what we teach! So I set out to learn all about it, and a few months later, we launched!
Can you share a story about the most interesting thing that has happened to you since you started podcasting?
Honestly, getting to meet some of the people I admire most in the world like Wim Hof, Robb wolf, Hal Elrod, and many more — and actually building relationships with them and getting to work with them has been incredible. It’s also really cool when people stop me in public and tell me how the podcast has impacted their life!
Can you share a story about the biggest or funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
When I interviewed Vanessa Van Edwards, early on, I actually conducted the entire interview and then realized that I had selected the wrong microphone! The whole episode was recorded on the internal mic of my computer, and sounded awful! My big lesson was to have a flight checklist and to check it every single time, no matter how many times you’ve done the routine before.
How long have you been podcasting and how many shows have you aired?
We have now been at it for 5 years, and we’d done around 260 episodes!
What are the main takeaways or lessons you want your listeners to walk away with?
Podcasting is an incredible way to grow your business and your credibility. But don’t forget that at the end of the day, it’s about connection — connection to your audience and connection to your guests if you have guests. Work towards bullring authentic connections and relationships with both, and you’ll have both fun and success along the way.
Check out the full interview in Tracy Hazzard’s Authority Magazine article about Jonathan Levi!
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Podcaster Influencer, Jonathan Levi of the SuperHuman Academy Podcast shares the best ways to:
1) Book Great Guests. We have a spreadsheet of all the people who’s work we find interesting, and a process for emailing them. However, most of our guests these days come from events or networking groups I’m a part of, or connections through other guests. We try not to accept too many guest submissions as the best interviews come from people I deliberately seek out.
2) Increase Listeners. Integrate your podcast into everything else you do. If you build courses, make some of your episodes required homework for your students. In your books, wrote your past guests and link people to the full episode. In your marketing funnels, include podcast episodes. Make your podcast a core part of all you do. It will help people to discover and subscribe to it.
3) Produce in a Professional Way. Outsource it from day one. It’s highly unlikely that you’re passionate or talented at editing audio or scheduling interviews. That’s NOT how you skies be spending your time. Use an automated schedule and hire an editor on Fiverr, and focus on the things you do best.
4) Encourage Engagement. Reading reviews on the air has been the best way for us to get people to engage, feel part of a community, and leave more reviews. It makes them feel connected and heard to you, and that is highly engaging!
5) Monetize. The vast majority of podcasters are NOT making meaningful money through ads. We run them, but the revenue isn’t enough to support our business. Realistically, your podcast MUST be a driver for your own business, bringing you customers and leads for your own products and services. This is true whether you sell products or services — and whether you are turning listeners or guests into customers and collaborators. Your podcast needs to drive your business revenue, not be a major source of revenue in and of itself.
What makes your podcast binge-listenable? What do you think makes your podcast unique from the others in your category? What do you think is special about you as a host, your guests, or the content itself?
Check out the full interview in Tracy Hazzard’s Authority Magazine article about Jonathan Levi!
