This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Today's question comes from Jake in Pittsburgh. Jake runs a podcast on health and wellbeing, and he has a bit of an ethical quandary, a quandary. What's another word for quandary? It is kind of a dilemma, let's say. He's just trying to do the right thing.
And Jake has been approached for ad placements by companies in the online therapy and pharmaceutical sectors. So interesting, right? Because he's got this podcast on health and wellbeing. Doesn't mean that every company in pharmaceutical or online therapy or anything related is necessarily negative or adverse to Jake's message and mission. In fact, some of them could be very well aligned, but I think he's also aware that it could go the other way as well.
And he wants to make sure he's always most loyal to his listeners. I think that is so, so important. I tried to be most loyal to our listeners as well. Thank you for being out there. And so he's got the situation where these offers provide an opportunity for revenue.
He wants to see some growth, but he's rightly concerned about potential conflicts of interest due to the sensitive nature of the content. So I thought this one was pretty interesting, and naturally I wanted to bring it to your attention as well. If you've also been contemplating the ethics of sponsorships in a delicate field, or if you're just thinking about having a podcast or a blog or whatever your category might be, you might like hearing about Jake's dilemma, what he's trying to go through and figure out, and then also my unfiltered advice. And I'll just, I will be unfiltered as usual. Should Jake accept ads from companies in this category?
Let's talk about it. Detailed question right after the shout out to our sponsor. And yes, I will tie all this back together. Stay tuned. [Music]
I'm Jake from Pittsburgh, and for the past two years, I've been running a podcast focused on health and wellbeing.
I've recently been approached for ad placements by online therapy and pharmaceutical companies. Given the sensitive nature of my topics, should I consider the sponsorship offers ethical? I want to make the show more sustainable through more diverse sponsorships, but I worry about the appearance of any conflicts. [Music]
All right, so a couple of different points here. First things first, whenever these ethical questions come up, I don't claim to be the ethicist or an expert on philosophy.
I just try to give you my honest and direct take. And I also often think when people have questions about a quandary on ethical dilemma and so on, the fact that they're worried about it in the first place is usually a good sign, at least a sign that their heart is in the right place. They're trying to make the right decision. They are concerned with balancing potentially conflicting information or even the appearance of any conflict as Jake mentioned. You know, a lot of people might just not think about it at all, right?
So I think it's a good sign. You're already being sensitive to it. So I think that's going to then guide a lot of the decision-making process. And maybe it's case by case. I don't know that Jake needs to have a whole category block and say, I'm not doing any ads, no sponsors, you know, in these categories because his podcast or his project is focused on wellbeing.
It's naturally going to attract those kinds of sponsors assuming he has the right number of downloads and other factors that you need to have. And it's also true that podcasts are supported by advertising and that's okay. Most listeners understand that. Most listeners understand, okay, there is editorial, there are ads, sometimes they're, you know, a little bit intertwined. But I think the best way is what we try to do here on our podcast is like there's a space for the ads.
It's really clear what those ads are. If I ever mentioned other companies in my answers or introductions to questions or in the other case studies and such, I always clarify if there is a sponsor relationship. More often than not, there's not. I'm just talking about different tools that I use or different websites and such. We just try to be really clear about what that disclosure or disclaimer is.
So I think if you do that, whether you're Jake or somebody else, I think those are the most important things. But then of course, you know, if there is a company that you don't wanna do ads for, you can just turn it down. And that's okay. With almost every podcast distributor network, the podcast host has the opportunity to approve or reject potential deals that come through. And most of the time it's very innocuous.
Most of the time it's just like, oh, here's some companies, they wanna do ads, fine. But once in a while, like something does come across my desk and I'm like, I don't like that so much, let's just not go there, right? So if you feel that way, then do that, right? And then just move on. But nothing wrong with ads, of course, nothing wrong with sponsors and partners.
I really appreciate our sponsors and partners. They allow us to make the podcast for you every single day, 2,500 plus days in a row without charging anything, without selling anything. It's all completely free to listeners. That's my perspective, as I said, unfiltered. Jake, of course, needs to do what's best for him.
Everybody needs to do what's best for them. But I think to go back to where I started, the fact that you're paying attention to stuff like that is a good sign. And your listeners are gonna pick up on that as well. So in other words, I don't think you need to worry too much. All right, listeners, let me know what you think.
Or if you have any question or experience in this world of your own, we can share that with other listeners too. sidehustleschool.com/questions. New episodes every day, seven days a week, all completely free, supported by sponsorship. Thanks so much to the sponsors. Thanks to our listeners.
More to come. My name's Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
From the "Onward Project."
