How Campfire Stories Sparked a 20-Year Podcast Empire with Jim Harold

Welcome to our 2025 Halloween special of the Business Development Podcast.

Tonight, we sit down with a true legend, the godfather of paranormal podcasting, the man behind the Paranormal Podcast, and Jim Harold's campfire, Jim Harold himself.

For 20 years, Jim Harold has been captivating audiences around the world, proving that storytelling still holds the power to connect us, inspire us, and sometimes even give us a few chills.

Along the way, his shows have defined an entire genre and inspired countless creators, myself included.

Without Mr. Harold, this very podcast might never have existed.

So settle in, dim the lights, and get ready for a conversation that celebrates passionate persistence and the legacy of a true pioneer.

Stick with us.

You won't want to miss this very special episode.

The great Mark Cuban once said, business happens over years and years.

Value is measured in the total upside of a business relationship, not by how much you squeezed out in any one deal.

And we couldn't agree more.

This is the Business Development Podcast in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and broadcasting to the world.

You'll get expert business development advice, tips and experiences.

And you'll hear interviews with business owners, CEOs and business development reps. You'll get actionable advice on how to grow business, brought to you by Capital Business Development, CapitalBD CA.

Let's do it.

Welcome to the Business Development Podcast.

And now, your expert host, Kelly Kennedy.

Hello.

Welcome to episode 285 of the Business Development Podcast and our Halloween Special for 2025.

Today, it is my absolute pleasure to welcome a true podcasting legend, Jim Harold.

Jim is the godfather of paranormal podcasting, the man who built an entire genre and proved that independent voices could stand shoulder to shoulder with the biggest networks in the world.

Since 2005, he has been captivating millions with the Paranormal Podcast and Jim Harold's campfire, amassing over 80 million downloads and producing more than 3,000 episodes that have become the gold standard for storytelling about the unknown.

His Campfire book series has topped Amazon Supernatural charts again and again.

And this year he celebrates 20 years of redefining what it means to be a podcaster.

Jim didn't just create shows, he created a movement.

He gave a voice to thousands of people who had never been heard and in doing so, built one of the most loyal audiences in podcasting history.

His impact reaches far beyond the paranormal.

He has inspired countless creators, myself included.

In fact, the Paranormal Podcast was the very first podcast that I ever listened to back in 2015.

Sitting here today with you, Jim, is more than just an interview.

It's an honor and a privilege.

Welcome to the business development podcast 2025 special.

Welcome.

And I don't know if you can hear in the background, my dogs are barking.

So this shows what it truly means to be an independent podcaster.

But thank you very much.

Thank you very much for having me on the.

And for those very, very kind words.

You know, it's amazing to me that, you know, people have listened and they've really taken it to heart and started their own podcasting journey, whether it be in the paranormal or something totally different.

So that's very rewarding for me, and it's really great to hear.

And I gotta say, I'm excited to be here because usually when I'm on podcasts, I get to talk only spooky stuff.

And I know this being the Halloween special, we're gonna talk about some spooky stuff, of course, but also the business side of, I think without one, there's not the other.

So I'm.

I'm anxious to talk about it.

Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely.

It's so funny.

You've been such a major part of our.

Of our family and our household for so many years.

Big reason that Shelby's here.

She's not always here on.

On these particular episodes, but when I told her that we were meeting Jim Harold, she's like, yeah, I'll be there.

We have.

We actually have a ritual in our house, Jim, where almost every Saturday for the last five or nearly six years, we've cooked breakfast and listened to Jim Harold's campfire with our.

With our boys.

Oh, wow.

That is awesome.

Yeah, so it's been.

It's been cool, man.

Like, you've really been.

You've really been the inspiration for me as a podcaster.

Frankly, like I said, I wouldn't even be listening to podcasts, I think, had I not found the paranormal podcast way back in, you know, 2015.

And actually, I can tell you, the very first episode that I ever listened to with you was when you interviewed one of the authors for the Hunt for the Skinwalker.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember that.

I remember that.

That's going back a few years.

I will let you know that I immediately went and bought the book.

So you are selling a ton of books for these authors.

For anyone listening right now, that's good.

It was a cool experience.

And I remember, too, the very first time that I actually, like, found you on Google, I was surprised because you sound so much older than you are.

Oh, my God.

I get that constantly.

I get that constantly.

I don't what it is about my voice, but some.

For some reason, people think I'M really old.

I can't figure out what it is, but no, I get that consistently.

Yeah, yeah.

And, you know, just the other day, somebody on Spotify, I didn't realize how young Jim is.

I'm like, yeah, keep talking.

That's good.

But, but, but the thing is, is that, yeah, I don't know what is.

I think maybe I've been trying to figure it out because I don't think my voice, the tenor of my voice sounds old.

But honestly, I think it's because I'm more of a product of old school broadcasting.

Yeah.

So I kind of pattern my speech in that way so people think, oh, this guy's got to be ancient.

Yeah, yeah, no, not the case.

And actually, please don't change it because at this point, I don't think I could take that.

I don't think I could change it.

If I wanted to.

Yeah.

Super, super cool.

And I actually used you as an, as an example.

I think when I reached out to you, I said, hey, I'm doing, I'm doing a series right now teaching podcasting on the Business Development Podcast.

Because I think all businesses moving forward need some form of, you know, outside representation, and podcasts are absolutely incredible for that.

So I just decided I'm going to put together, you know, a 10 part on everything I've learned in, you know, starting a podcast, building a podcast from scratch.

And I did use you and the paranormal podcast as, you know, the perfect example for how to niche yourself out and name a show in such a way that when people search you, they will find you.

And actually, I based my show, the Business Development Podcast, on the paranormal podcast because guess what?

You are the king of paranormal.

And I wanted to figure out how to carve that same niche in the business development space.

And so you were a major inspiration for this particular show.

And I just wanted to thank you.

I wanted to thank you for putting in so much effort and changing so many people's lives, mine included.

I think it's hard as a podcaster to realize how far your impact reaches.

Like, you know, most people aren't reaching out to you.

I reached out to you for the first time.

What?

Ten years of listening to you.

Ten years of listening to you.

Right.

I don't think we quite put together how far our reach is as podcasters.

I agree.

You know, we were, we were running an errand the other day, and this, my wife, Dar and I, and she's become, over the years, I mean, she's always been a part behind the scenes, even when she Wasn't working on the business, just supporting, you know, in general, of course.

And I couldn't have done any of this without her.

But over the years she's become more visible and now we do a show together and so forth.

But we were out on an errand and two people walked up to us and said, you're the Herald.

And I was like blown away.

I'm like, wait a minute, wait a minute.

This doesn't happen to me.

And you're right.

You never know who's listening.

You never know where they're listening from.

You never know the impact.

I mean Campfire, for example, which I started, you know, paranormal podcast in 05, campfire in 09.

I thought, oh, it'll be cool just to share some spooky stories.

Isn't it that cool?

And it does have that about it.

But also some people find it cover comforting maybe when they've lost a loved one.

Because we do share the, you know, really terrifying stories, but we also share the ones that are more heartwarming too about someone who got a message from a loved one and to realize or I'm sure with you with your business podcast.

I know if it has happened already, I'm sure it will, but probably has happened.

Somebody said, I listened to your podcast and it inspired me to take on this project or start this business or do this thing.

We do make a difference.

But I do think you got to remember with much power comes much responsibility.

And I think anybody that gets behind the mic of for a podcast needs to know once you put that out there, you don't know who's going to be listening.

So be responsible with that and be thoughtful about it.

Yeah, yeah, I love that messaging too and you know, like it was surprising for me.

But how many people go back and listen to all of your episodes?

Right.

Like I would say at this point we get more downloads to our back catalog and this might actually be similar for you as well, but we get way more more downloads to our back catalog than even our brand new Episodes.

Yeah, they get that boost of that launch day boost.

But over time if you go back in.

Some of our most listened to episodes are back catalog episodes.

Yeah, well for me and it gets into the business plan part of that.

That is a huge part of my plus club, our back catalog episode.

So we can talk about that more.

But they're very important.

And that's the thing.

It's like I've often said, you know, I've thought about it in years to come as you know and I Hope I'm around 20, 30, 40 more.

But you know, I'm thinking about these shows also for my children to have, you know, you know, something that, that they can continue to capitalize on and people can listen to the catalog 20, 30 years from now.

I know I love old time radio and things.

I listen to shows that were made in the 40s.

I listened to CBS Radio Mystery Theater that was made in the 70s.

And I can imagine, given the topic of our shows, particularly the Campfire, which is not dated at all, people could be listening to these shows 30, 40 years from now, you know, when I'm probably not around here, they absolutely will be.

And here's my proof.

So when I found Campfire for the first time, I was looking for something similar to Art Bell's Halloween specials and.

Yeah, Ghost To Ghost, exactly.

I remember as like a young BD guy on the road all the time and you spent time in bd, so I know you get that world.

I was just on the road traveling from place to place and I absolutely loved listening to Ghost to Ghost am Art Bell's Halloween specials.

And honestly, like you, you have just replicated that in such an incredible, incredible.

And outdid what Art Bell, you know, I'm sure he wanted something that long, but just basically turned something that was a segment into its own individual successful show, which frankly, I haven't listened to.

One I didn't love.

Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you.

The weird thing is, is that, you know, I have done projects, I thought, oh, this is going to be huge.

People are going to love this.

And they're kind of.

But then Campfire was a total accident.

What happened was, is I had.

If you've been listening for years, you probably heard this story.

I basically had a week for the paranormal podcast.

I didn't have a guest.

And I'm like, well, what can we do?

We'll just do a week of listener stories.

And I think I got four or five people to come on the show and just tell their stories.

And I'm like, well, wait a minute.

And it got a good reaction.

Yeah.

And I'm like, wait a minute, this is a different show.

And I'm like, well, what can I call it?

And it's kind of like the same methodology I use for the paranormal podcast.

Because the paranormal podcast, I'm like, well, it's paranormal and it's podcast.

And these days they say don't do that.

Don't use podcast your name.

But I'm not changing it.

It's been 20 years.

So I'm keeping the same.

But anyway, I thought, well, I'm not the brightest person, but it's paranormal in a podcast.

I call Paranormal Podcast.

It was so early that I got that name.

So with Campfire, I'm like, well, what could it be?

You know, people around telling stories.

Well, they're around a campfire.

And I thought, well, a million people either have.

Or going to have campfire in their title.

So I'll just call it Jim Harrell's Campfire, because as far as I know, I'm the only Jim Harrell doing paranormal podcasts.

So that, that kind of stuck.

But it was, it was one of those things, sometimes successes in business.

You know, what is it that they say about the microwave?

It was people working on something for the military during World War II, and they had a candy bar in their pocket and they stood in front of this microwave and it melted, and they're like, wait a minute, we can cook stuff with this.

I mean, same kind of thing.

I think that the thing though is, though, it's that old saying, you know, the harder I work, the luckier I get.

Yeah.

You know, if you try not saying you should be aimless, but if you try different things, some of them are going to work or some, some of them aren't going to work.

But if you don't try things, it's guaranteed.

You know, it's the old.

How many cliches can I use in this episode?

As many as you want.

Yeah, you, you, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take.

So, you know, I took a shot on that.

And that's really, to be honest with you, that's what powers the whole business.

Campfire is kind of eclipsed the Paranormal Podcast, even though I still put it out every week.

In fact, for the Halloween season, I don't know how this is going to time out, but for the Halloween season, we're going to actually do a couple of episodes.

So we kind of wrap it up for the Halloween season for Paranormal Podcast as a special treat.

But yeah, it's.

It's one of those things.

It's.

It's had some staying power and I love the campfire.

And again, it's the basis where I would do.

And this is, this is why I've been able to do it full time since 2012.

Is a campfire specific.

Yeah, well, I can tell you that I enjoy both.

We listen to both.

And I think, like I said, they're very different shows.

Like, you know, you get to explore different ideas with Paranormal Podcasts.

And you get to allow people to explore and share their stories through campfire like it's the perfect blend.

It's the perfect blend.

Thank you.

But please, you know, for the listeners who are maybe getting to hear you for the first time as a business audience, they're probably, I hope that some of them are listening to the paranormal podcast and Jim Harold's campfire, but if they're not, let's give them the story.

Take me back to 2005.

I'll be honest.

I was in grade 10.

I'm almost 40, so that just gives you an idea.

I was in grade 10 back then and I wasn't even remotely listening to podcasts yet.

I think if I was lucky, I had my very first ipod.

Yeah, the way it happened for me was I'd always been a talk radio fan.

And there were.

And there was this guy, and that goes back to Art Bell and Larry King and all these different talk radio guys.

I was the weird teenager listening to talk radio in my ear.

And then I think Art came in in my, my 20s and, and really enjoyed what he did.

He was the best ever to do this.

But anyhow, I had gone to school for broadcasting and graduated in the early 90s and then proceeded to get a job at a radio station, but as a sales assistant, because it was the job I could get, because that used to be the guidance, hey, get a job in any TV or radio station you can get and go from there.

The important thing is to get into the industry.

Well, my full intention had been to be a broadcaster.

I never once considered sales as a career.

And lo and behold, I kind of fell into radio sales, advertising sales.

And that was probably about 1994, 95.

And then I looked up and it was 2005 and it's like, guess I'm not going to be doing that broadcasting thing.

I've got a wife we still have and two kids, which I still have, but now they're grown up and they're out of the house.

Recent empty nest.

And it's like, I'm never going to be able to follow this dream.

And then I heard about this thing called podcasting.

First, as a listener, there was a guy by the name of Leo Laporte, a tech journalist who used to be on something called zdtv, then tech tv.

I used to love that they did away with the channel wherever.

And I said, I wonder whatever happened.

That guy, I really like listening to him.

And then I found his radio show on the.

I think it was a KFI website or Something it's probably like at that point to date it, if people remember or old enough to remember real player and stuff like that.

Yeah.

And I started listening to his shows and like it's also available as a podcast and I'm like a what cast?

And I started listening.

This must have been 2004, late 2004, early 2005.

And then Adam Curry, I found out the former MTV guy had a podcast.

In fact, he was basically the co inventor of podcasting along with Dave Weiner.

I started listening to his podcast called Daily Source Code and I said, you know what, I could do this for fun.

I could get a cheapo mic and plug it into my crappy Windows computer and I could do a podcast.

Because I listened to Adam and Leo, I'm like, oh my God, I can't do what they're doing.

They're seasoned great broadcasters.

But then I listened to some of the homemade stuff from 2005, it's like, well, I could do that.

Yeah, yeah.

And then I thought about what am I going to do it on?

And at this point, keep in mind, this was solely as a hobby really.

Nobody was making money at this, at that point, nobody.

And I thought, oh, this will be so cool because I'll be able to scratch my broadcasting itch, you know, I'm not quitting my day job.

This is solely for fun.

If anything's gonna cost me money.

So I thought, well, politics.

I don't wanna make people angry.

I wanna get along with everyone.

Music, you couldn't do it and it's a sin.

You still can't do anything with music, with podcasting, cause of rights issues.

That's of out a horrible thing.

Sports.

What am I going to add?

I'm just a fan.

I've been fascinated about the paranormal since I was a kid going back to In Search of and the beauty of that is nobody's an expert because nobody really knows what's going on.

That's right.

And I could and I still feel that way actually.

And I mean there's people who are expert on theories and so forth, but I don't think any of us have cracked it.

Sure.

But anyway, I thought I'll do that, named it the Paranormal Podcast.

Bought I think a Plantronics $30 headset and basically taught myself and everything when I went to school was all analog based, all the broadcasting equipments because right before, you know, non linear editing and stuff came in for audio and video.

So everything was pushing physical buttons and radio stuff was like literally a razor blade, a physical Razor blade.

Yeah, you would cut tape and market and you.

So anyway, the point being that I had to kind of teach myself the digital tools, which I did.

I think I used Odyssey like so many people still do, and I got a Libsyn account and was with them for many years, up until a little over a year ago as a host, and started doing the show for fun.

Kind of did it for a while, then slowed down because I got a promotion and became.

I had a team of people at my work, and things got busy, and then, lo and behold, I got fired.

The only time I ever got fired in my whole career.

And it's the best thing that ever happened.

And you've probably heard that one before.

I have, yeah.

And through not business development, folks configure.

I mean, I increased sales 30%, moved a whole department, hired a new department, increased revenue by 33% over the course of the year, and it still wasn't good enough.

So.

Good enough.

Whatever.

Yeah.

And actually, if I could see that person who fired me, I would shake their hand and say thank you.

Because at that point, I wasn't ready to strike out on my own.

The podcasts were still, you know, just a hobby, and I was getting kind of spotty with the production, honestly.

Still doing it, but now and then.

And so, long story short, I got a job with a major broadcaster, CBS Radio, and I was the head of their Internet sales for a cluster of stations in Cleveland.

Four stations.

And my job was to convince the salespeople to sell Internet advertising before smartphones.

Not an easy job, because it was all banners and stuff.

Yeah.

So I got that job, and I really liked the people that I worked with, and I worked with some great people over there, and I outlasted almost everybody in every.

Because you would call in in every market around the country, and they had.

At that point, it's.

It's no longer became CBS Radio, then it was sold.

Now it's Odyssey, and it's all melded with other companies.

But this was CBS at the time.

And, you know, every call, there would be different people in every market.

They would burn through these people because it was impossible job because the salespeople didn't want to sell Internet advertising.

They didn't want to change.

They used to say chasing digital dimes and passing up, you know, real dollars, something like that.

So it was a hard job, but I learned a lot, learned a ton, which has helped me in this job.

You bought and.

But at some point, I thought when I got him, like, this is the job I'M working for a.

A big radio conglomerate, multiple stations.

This is really where I'm going to make my mark.

And then about almost a year and I'm like, yeah, I'm not sure what kind of mark I'm going to make here.

I mean, it's a good job, good people, you know, fairly compensated, all that.

But this is not going to be my life's work.

And then I thought to myself, like, wait a minute, all these people are asking for more podcast episodes and I'm just kind of ignoring them.

Let's really crank it up.

And what happened?

I remember the point because I think most people, when they have a pivotal point in their business, they remember where they were.

I was sitting in my daughter's T ball game and I was listening to Dan Carlin, Hardcore History, and he's one of the OG podcasters, preceded me, certainly.

And this had to be probably June of what would have been 2008, something like that, somewhere around there, summer of 2008.

And I heard him and he had an ad for Audible and I thought to myself, well, you dummy, you know, people are clamoring for more shows.

You're not putting out more shows here.

Podcasters are getting real sponsors now.

You can do something you love and maybe you can make a little side income at it.

So I told my wife, I said, six months.

I'm going to put out a show every week for six months and see what happened about the six months.

I was contacted out of the blue by an agency saying, hey, we've got a client who wants to sponsor your show.

It's called Audible.

And that was like, ding, there's your sign.

And then I got very religious about it and never missed an episode and brought in the campfire.

And then in I think it was 2011, I said, I listened to other podcasters like Cliff Ravenscraft and people who were doing this premium thing.

And this is before Patreon or any of that stuff.

Yeah.

And it was all like, you'd have to have this service, talk to that service.

It was really kind of clued together with plugins and stuff, but I said, I'm gonna give it a try.

And my first day that I had a plus club, I got 200 members.

Wow.

And I said, okay, this is real.

This is a path to independence towards doing my own thing.

And, you know, ever since then, June of 2012, I quit my full time job.

My wife was very understanding, very understanding.

And yeah, started In June of 2012, full time and been full time ever since.

Now that's not to say we don't have challenges.

Even now is a challenging time because we've seen certain revenue streams go down.

Yeah.

You know, and that's something else.

We can talk about the importance of multiple income streams.

But yeah, that's what set me off.

And that's kind of my story.

And so to me, I look at it two ways and I, I have a model for this.

I work for a classical radio station which was a commercial station.

They're pretty much not commercial anymore, they're all public.

But in the 90s and the 2000s they were still some commercial classical stations.

I worked with a gentleman, his name was Robert Conrad, just like the actor.

But this guy had founded the station, co founded in the 60s, had worked on the programming side up until the 90s, I think, early 90s, when he became an owner or became the owner of the station.

And he always had one hemisphere in the business side and one hemisphere on the programming side.

And he always fought to do the right thing on both sides.

And he was kind of my model.

He was also the voice of the Cleveland Orchestra for over on the radio that was syndicated all over the world for over 40 years.

So a tremendous broadcaster, but also smart business wise.

And he always tried to do the right thing for his audience, the right thing for his business and the right thing for the product.

And he was kind of my model because I kind of consider myself split brained when I do this.

Half of me is like, okay, programming, programming, programming.

The other part is sales, sales, sales, you know.

Yeah, it's kind of like newspapers have editorial and then the publishing side, you know, that's, that's the way it works.

I kind of view it as always take any decision is will this work business wise, will it work?

Well, if it doesn't work on both sides, I don't do it.

For example, I've turned down a lot of ad deals for things I don't believe in.

Yeah.

Whether it's like supplements that are shady or one time there was a charity that a major agency came to me and said, oh, we want.

And it's one you'll hear on radio, traditional radio, if you listen.

And so why, why didn't you want to do this?

I said I look them up and they give far too little to the actual kids that they purport to serve.

So you know, the thing is I always try to do the right thing for the business and for the programming side.

I always try to keep that, that both in mind.

Yeah.

And that makes a lot of sense because at the end of the day, you have to feel good about what you're doing too.

Right, right.

We're not just out here doing this willy nilly.

Like at the end of the day, we have passions, we have things that we believe in and it has to, it has to match.

And it's good business too, I think.

You know, I, I mean, it's not 100%, but the vast, vast majority of things that.

Because I do a lot of host red ads.

In fact, we had somebody tell me back in the spring that, that one particular month we were the, for a major brand, the best performing podcast that they had.

And I think that's because I don't bring crap to my audience.

I bring things that, that I've used or would use and things that I feel that are good product.

And I think that that's.

Again, I think sometimes you can do good and do well at the same time.

Absolutely.

Well, I was going to say, hey, babe, didn't Liquid IV show up in our house not that long ago?

Yeah, liquid I.V.

they did.

If you're looking for an ad angle, it might be for the home birthing mamas of the world.

Oh, wow.

We needed electrolytes for that birth journey.

Oh, wow.

So yeah, it made its way into our home for sure.

Yeah, it's a good product.

In fact, I just had one last night.

Just had one last night.

I kid you not.

Hopefully they've sent you a lifetime supply.

They send some.

My gosh, though, you know.

So you mentioned that.

Was it 2011 then that you went full time into podcasting?

2012, I went full time.

I started the plus club.

So it wasn't like.

Cause a lot of people are like, how can I start podcasting today and quit my job tomorrow?

And it's like, I don't know how you can do that.

If you figure that out, good luck.

Because it took me literally.

I mean, I would say, I would start 2000, I would start to clock in 2008, because that's when I really got serious.

Even though the show was in production from 05 to 08 08, when I really got super serious.

So it took me four years.

Yeah.

You know, and I gotta admit, I gotta say, and this, I don't mean to be discouraging anybody because I do believe you should start a podcast if you have a passion, whether you just want to pursue that passion or you want to try to do business wise, who am I to say, don't try?

But I'd say I had a first mover.

Advantage.

I had a big first mover advantage.

You know, I don't think there's any question about that.

And that helped me incredibly.

But even with that, it took me four years.

Yep, yep.

Absolutely.

And I would say, too, like, the fact that you were able to name your show the Paranormal Podcast, no matter who came after you.

Right.

You were the one, Right?

Yeah.

No, it helped me immensely.

It helped me immensely.

There's no question about it.

There are a couple.

There's like a couple of decisions, and then I'm going to give you one that I made that was a huge mistake.

Those two decisions, the campfire decision and the naming of the Paranormal podcast were two key decisions.

Here's one where I made a big mistake.

And gosh, I wish I knew the exact date of it, but was before, you know, the podcast Serial.

That kind of kicked off a whole true crime craze.

Well, I remember being at the local community pool and saying, you know, I ought to add a true crime podcast.

And this was a year or two before Serial, and I started one, which would seem to be a masterstroke, but I made one key mistake.

I put it in my Premium plus club, which limited its reach.

Yeah.

So maybe if.

If I had put that out in the public and it had caught on, maybe you'd be saying true crime podcasting pioneer Jim Harrell.

So, I mean, you know, I think it's almost any business is you can look back and say, boy, did I.

Did I hit it out of the park with that one.

Boy, that was a good idea.

And then you look at another one, you go, yeah, I missed on that one.

And I think it's kind of like what I try to tell my wife and I try to tell our kids when they're down.

It's like.

Like life is a roller coaster.

And, you know, you may be one of the best blessed people who are always on top and never have a problem, but in my experience, it's going to be.

There's going to be ups and there's going to be downs.

I think one of the biggest things about sustaining business, whether it's business development and sales, whether it's owning a business, is being able to take the punches, take the good with the bad, and being able to keep going, keep going, keep going, never give up.

And I think that my stubbornness is one of my best assets, is that I just don't give up.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I was gonna say, like, I don't know, like, what could there be ever 50, 100 podcasters in the world ever who've made it 20 years like you.

You are in such a unique category at that, at that amount and that, that duration of time.

Like I said, I'm sure it's 50, 100 tops, period in the world.

You know, what is that, what does that meant for you personally?

I guess like as somebody who.

For me, I'm going into my third year of podcasting and it has been a slog.

It has been a lot of work to get to three years, let alone 20.

Let alone 20.

When let's say the first six or eight years, you weren't really making a whole lot of money from the show.

It was truly a passion project for you.

You talk to me a little bit about what the 20 year anniversary has meant for you personally.

It's kind of a validation.

It's like there's no way that I could do this as long as if I have done this is.

And it not be good to some extent.

Yeah.

I mean, granted, it's not for everybody.

Some people listen to my show and they go, it's not for me, it's boring or whatever.

But there are a group of people out there who resonate with it and say this is good quality stuff.

And I mean, just as we're recording this just last week now, we were lucky.

Spotify spotlit me for a week, but we were, we were number two on the society and culture charts.

Wow.

And that was against Oprah and iHeartRadio and all these huge mega media corporations, in many cases beating them.

And that kind of thing just gives me fuel to keep going, keep going, keep going, because obviously we're doing something right.

We're not doing everything right.

And when my big business kind of philosophies, I work for one company where this was their big mantra.

I don't know if they always lived up to it, but I did agree with it was continuous improvement.

And you've always got, I mean, last year I did a massive upgrade on my hosting for my shows.

I did a massive upgrade for my hosting for my website, which people are deemphasizing these days because of social media, thinking they can just live on social media, which is a mistake.

And this year we rolled out a dedicated community.

So even 20 years in, I'm trying to think, okay, how can we take the next step?

How can we make this bigger?

How can we make this better?

Because if you don't, you stagnate.

So but for me to your question, having those milestones, being high on the charts, saying, I've have the longest Running Paranormal podcast on the Internet, which is.

It is, as far as I can tell, Absolutely.

Yeah.

To me, that's validation.

You're doing something right.

But there's always room to get better.

That's right.

That's right.

But there's also, you know, I mean, just the people who love what you do being the other side of it as well.

Like, the reality is the campfire is the campfire is the campfire.

I enjoy it just as much today as I did five, ten years ago.

Right.

Like, there's something about having something that just works that people get nostalgic about that just love.

I love.

You know what I love about Paranormal podcast and campfire?

I love that no matter what, I know what I'm gonna get right, and I'm gonna love it.

Right.

You know what?

To me, it is.

It's.

The price is right.

I mean, it's not.

I'm not comparing it to the prices.

Right.

I mean, obviously that has generated billions of dollars and has way more cultural impact than my shows will ever have.

But I. I will say this, is that I think that that's what I used to love when I was a kid.

And you have it up there, too, I'm sure, as well.

When I was a kid, it was a big thing in the States.

When you were sick, you had, you know, you had your ginger ale, you had your noodle soup and Bob Barker, you bet, you know, And.

And to me, I hope, like, because now what I'm getting a lot is.

And you're kind of doing it with your family.

Oh, you know, I listened to the shows growing up.

Up, Go at.

My dad would drive me to school, and I listened to the shows, and now I'm listening, and now it makes me feel a little old, but it's also extremely gratifying.

It's extremely gratifying that it's become a family tradition for people.

So, I mean, it's really kind of the ultimate feel good that you can make something that's a business and still make it something that.

That.

That families can enjoy.

You wouldn't necessarily think of that about a ghost show, but we try to keep it.

We try to keep it.

I mean, there's some, you know, there's some stuff I wouldn't necessarily have let my kids listen to when they were little, but we.

We keep broadcast standards and we request the people don't curse and.

And those kind of things.

So.

But it is heartwarming for me to know that it is something that.

That people gravitate to, to Year after year after year.

Well, I can tell you that this family, the Kennedy household, has made a lot of great memories listening to Jim Harold's campfire, literally around a campfire.

A lot of situations this summer, but not just.

But not just that.

Like, you know, like I said, Saturday mornings, cooking breakfast, it's a tradition.

The boys are just used to coming downstairs.

We're making breakfast campfires on.

Right.

Like it's.

You've done such an exceptional job with it.

Like, you really are going to be the case study one day for how to do a podcast.

Right.

I can pretty much guarantee you.

So it's a privilege to have you here.

You know, I did want to talk to you a little bit about how you know your time, because obviously advertising and growing a podcast is a very challenging thing.

I think that's probably the biggest hurdle that most new podcasters face is that there's a lot of people out there saying, oh, buy my crappy podcast advertising and I'll get you whatever a thousand likes here and there, left, right and center.

And it's only getting worse.

You know, I would like to maybe understand the approach that you took in growing your show, because I think that could be really valuable.

We have a lot of podcasters who listen to the show.

I think that could be really valuable.

Learning from somebody who worked in radio advertising who grew his own show exceptionally well.

Talk to us a little bit about what your strategy was.

Well, I think again, I did have first mover advantage, so I can't take all the credit.

Some of it was just timing.

But I would say this is that if somebody approaches you and says, you know, I will get you X likes and many podcasters now are on YouTube.

I'll get you X views and those kind of things.

I would steer very, very far clear from all of that.

One very simple strategy, I think.

Now this would.

Would require some investment.

You might have to.

Or.

Or you might have to do something like a promo swap.

Swap is approach other people in your niche.

Let's say that you have a bottle cap collecting podcast, which I'm sure there's one of those out there.

Absolutely.

And you're starting another bottle cap collecting podcast.

But it, it's.

You don't see it as a competitor.

You're.

You're kind of alongside.

Maybe you have a different take on bottle cap collecting.

Say, what would it cost to put an ad in your show and do it very directly and those kind of things.

That's, that's a strategy.

Certainly you want to do social media and Be in the places because of algorithms.

That's.

That's tougher than always.

Certainly, I. I've done a lot of social media over the years, and we grew our Facebook group to 27,000 members.

But as I said, we're taking that to an.

A separate, dedicated community that I have to pay for.

But I was kind of getting sick of Facebook burying everything we post and everything that people contribute in the group.

So I would say, first of all, consistency, quality.

That doesn't mean you have to go out and buy the best equipment available.

I mean, right now I have tremendously good equipment, but I started off with a $30 headset.

But really, I mean, you can get started these days.

You can buy a USB mic for 60 or $70, and if you're in a quiet space, that'll get you 70% of the way there, 80% of the way there.

You know, there's so much.

So many more resources to learn how to do it technically now than there were when I started.

So, I mean, to grow it, though, I think you try to network within your community responsibly, not.

Don't be a spammer.

You know, don't go in a Facebook group that you just joined and say, hey, listen to my podcast.

Listen to my podcast.

Yeah, yeah, that's not right.

But, you know, you go in groups, you go in communities, and you become a resource and then say, oh, by the way, I have this show.

And by the way.

And then ask your listeners, that's your best salesforce right?

There is.

Ask your listeners, please.

You know what I often say, and it's true, I don't have big marketing budgets like these huge companies, but I have something more important.

I have you.

So please text a link to this show to a friend, to a family member, someone who loves the spooky, that they're your best salesforce, because they're already.

They already believe.

Believe.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And actually, you know what we've found in business development and marketing is that word, nothing trumps word of mouth, right?

Nothing from somebody else promoting you.

I always say you're almost the worst person to promote yourself, because it's like, of course.

But if you can get other people to say, have you heard Jim Harold's Gamfire?

Because it's freaking amazing, right?

That's going to sell your show better than just about anything else.

Yeah, I absolutely agree with that.

I mean, I think.

Think, and I love to hear these little viral stories of a lot of people come on the show and say, say, hey, you know, my Aunt Betty told me about this show and I decided that I wanted to call in and you've heard me say it before, be like, Aunt Betty, tell, tell a friend about the campfire today and then we'll get great stories like this one.

Yes.

You know, so, you know, spin it, spin it that way.

You know, you could do things as simple as audience participation is something some have people write in with questions or something like that.

So make a personal connection with your audience.

Yeah, I absolutely love it.

Shelb.

I've been, I've been stealing the questions.

I can kind of see you sitting there.

Do you have something that you want to ask Jim?

Oh, I have so many questions.

I think I know.

I guess one, one thing I've been curious about.

We've, we've talked a little bit about your journey and, and you know, how you've gotten to where you are today.

I'm curious, is there anything on the horizon for you and your business?

Like is there a kind of a white buffalo grand vision that you've been working toward or even something that scares you in business still that you haven't tried yet?

Well, there's a couple things that, that, that we've done this year.

You know, I dabbled in video in the 2010s.

We did a show for a while called the Paranormal Report that was in video but got away from it because nobody was paying attention and it was triple the work.

But video over the last year has come back in in a big way.

I mean, we don't have huge numbers on it, but I'm doing a video on YouTube of the paranormal podcast and campfire and I think that has been kind of fun because I think that, you know, what is it, 16 years in adds a new wrinkle to the show for campfire because people can see the storytellers.

We do give the storytellers the option not to include their video.

In that case, it's just me kind of looking and doing this.

But, but in general, I think that's added a dimension.

I want to do more public stuff.

We have a couple things coming up at the in fourth quarter this year, small things which I'm kind of looking at as a way to kind of.

It's like a stand up comedian going to a small club and trying out their material and then working up.

And then we have something preliminarily planned for late summer next year that'll be a little bit bigger.

So that's a big thing, is more in person kind of things.

I think that's something where we've left some opportunities on the table, but now with both my kids out of the house, we have a lot more flexibility.

And, yeah, that's something I've always wanted to push in a harder way.

And I think we're going to do that in 2026.

So I would say video and in that.

And we have some other things that we're hopeful.

We're doing a lot.

We're doing video on Spotify, which I think gives us a lot of promotional opportunities.

So I think that looking to.

To hopefully grow this show substantially, 2026, more video and more live appearances.

That's kind of what it's looking like now for the future.

One of my questions regarding video, because, you know, we've always had video, but what we've done is we've shared clips.

So, you know, I mean, I guess my thought when I started a podcast, I always listen to podcasts.

I listen to them on the road.

I listen to them while I was mowing the lawn.

I listened to them while I was working, but I listened to them.

So I always looked at it like, why go the video route for all of the extra work?

Like you said, it's like it's not walking up.

It's three or four times the work.

Yes, it's a lot of extra work for maybe not that same return.

You know, when I heard that you were going to video, I immediately wanted to reach out to you and ask you about that decision.

Because I've seen, for instance, the Scared to Death podcast has opted to go away from video.

They were a video show from the beginning.

And they said, you know What?

Only like 2% of our listeners are watching this video.

Everybody's listening.

We're going back to audio.

You know, it was an amazing trial.

What has been your experience transitioning to video so far?

Well, the funny thing.

Well, first of all, we're still audio first.

I mean, and the stats hold well.

Over 95% of our people are still audio.

The thing that surprises me about video, though, is the amount of interaction you get for the relatively small amount of people.

Yeah.

To me, I view YouTube specifically as a discovery engine.

Okay.

In other words, I'm with you.

When I listen to.

Even if I'm watching it on YouTube, most of the time, I put it on my phone and I set my phone out.

I'm an audio guy.

Yeah.

Because a podcast, I heard somebody say, I thought it was a great quote, is something you can listen to while your eyes are bitter busy, you know, So I kind of agree with you, for the most part, I'm mostly an audio guy too.

But there are people who are never going to open Apple podcasts.

There are people who are never going to open Spotify and look for podcasts now look for music, but they won't look for podcasts.

So for me, the benefit of YouTube is as a discovery engine and it's another on ramp to get people into the ecosystem.

I don't think video viewers are as loyal.

I don't think that they consume for as long.

I think audio is still the gold standard for people who consider them podcasters and podcasters.

And I really hope what doesn't happen in podcasting, which I fear is what's going to happen as podcasting is, is that people are going to just start doing YouTube videos and saying I'm a podcast.

Yeah.

But I don't think, and I know the people that scared to death, they're very smart people and do a great show.

So I totally respect where they're coming from and they're not wrong.

Yeah.

I just feel for me where I'm at.

I need, you know, to keep things fresh.

I need new ways for people to discover the shows And I think YouTube is a good way to do that.

Yeah, yeah, no, I'm with you on that.

I guess.

Like for instance, we have five kids, three of them are at YouTube watching age and you know, like I said, they don't typically sit and watch a 30 minute video or an hour long video.

Like the attention spans they have are so limited.

Right.

But they will sit outside and, or they'll ride in the truck and they'll listen to campfire or they'll sit at the campfire and listen to campfire.

Like there's certain situations where they will 100% sit and listen and I think that audio format on a certain level forces you to pay more attention.

Yeah, I do.

I agree with that.

I absolutely agree with that.

That.

Yeah.

I mean if it wasn't, if I had to survive on my video earnings, I would, I would either have a tin cup or going back to one of the radio stations.

No, I mean video has cost me way more money than it's ever made me.

Yeah.

I mean, but I've determined, and over the years I've upgraded my equipment and I've determined just like audio, I am going to try to put out a video product that is as good as it can possibly be.

So we've got high end cameras, high end lights.

Yeah.

You know, I've tried to do everything.

So if it doesn't strike.

It's not because, oh, well, I don't have that.

But really, to be honest with you, these days, I think with video, weirdly enough, the most important part of your video is your audio, because people don't really care about the video quality or you being will well lit.

But if they can't hear you, well, yes.

They automatically think, oh, this is somebody making this with their device and they don't want.

And we know some of the most popular regular clips are just done on this.

You know, we know that.

So I mean, the thing is, is that I don't know how well over time the shows will transfer, but I just added video to Spotify for Campfire, and people are saying, who didn't know I was on YouTube, even though I mentioned it on the shows.

Yeah.

Oh, I love now that we can see it.

So everybody's different.

You never know how people are going to react.

So now we have video on Spotify for Campfire, video on Spotify for the paranormal, PODC, of course, both on YouTube.

Wow.

Wow.

Yeah.

No.

So you've.

You've just jumped in.

Well, I'm interested.

I feel like I want to follow back up with you in a year and just maybe better explore how that's worked for you or not.

Because I, you know, I mean, the future of podcasting is something that I'm.

I'm invested in.

I'm in.

I want to see where this thing goes.

I love doing it, but I also, I love the traditional nature of an audio show.

And I think no matter what, no matter what path we go down with the bdp, I think audio will still always stay the primary format of the show, even if we do do some video.

Because I think that's really right, too.

I think you're absolutely right.

Like, you know, when I was teaching podcasting, you know, I said, listen, the most important thing is that you have good audio, because it doesn't matter what your message is if people can't get past the front cover.

Right.

You could have the best content in the world, but.

But it's just like a book.

He said if you pick up a book from a bookstore and.

And it's like, well, every other page is blank and it looks like the, you know, the.

The COVID was made on Microsoft Paint.

You know, you're not going to buy the book, but it could have the best content.

That's right.

That's right.

And it's the same with marketing materials or anything.

It's almost like the price and I think the back in the Day, people were more forgiving because they're like, but if you want to compete against the big boys, just the table stakes are having good sound.

Now, that doesn't mean you have to have.

You know, I laugh at some of these podcasts.

I hear sound design by this one, editing by this one, this one, this one, there's one editorial, this one.

There's like 50 people on the podcast.

And I understand some of them are very beautifully done and they've got these great sound effects and sound design and things, but it's like, oh, my God, I'm like the only full time employee of my company, and we put out multiple podcasts a week.

Yeah.

It's like, what are these people doing all this time?

Yeah, but anyway.

But anyway.

But if you're in.

But if you're in podcasting, you are competing, because what you're competing is people have a certain amount of time, and that's all the time they have.

That's our most precious commodity.

Right.

So if a podcast listener spends four hours a week, you're going against the CBC up in Canada.

You're going against NPR here, New York Times, Oprah, iHeartRadio.

You're going against all these professional people.

So you've got to at least sound like you belong for people to even consider you.

Well, and, and frankly, you know, I mean, you've been out there since the very beginning when it wasn't easy to get a good sound.

And we're at a point now where you can have a little home studio.

You know, I know you're working from your home studio, I'm working from my home studio.

And you can get exceptional sound utilizing the tools available to you today.

And a lot of these big ones are recorded in home studios.

A lot of these actors and things I don't think are going to separate studios.

They don't have to now.

I mean, my gosh, I've got a Neumann mic here, which is like the Howard Stern mic that you'd find at NPR or something.

I mean, if you, you can buy all this stuff and you don't even need to buy all this stuff, like I said, you can get 80% of the way there with like a 60, $70 mic.

I mean, really.

And, and learning the techniques for editing and recording and so forth, it's.

It's not that expensive anymore.

Yes, yes.

And like, the tools, the plugins that are coming out, you know, for audition, things like that, are only getting better and better and better year over year.

There's a great program called Auphonic it's web based.

Okay.

And it is.

We use it to master all of our shows.

And it is great in.

Because we deal with a lot of guests who have bad mics.

Yeah.

Like the Campfire.

Because when you're interviewing somebody and I sorry, interrupt you, but I'll just finish my thought and shut up.

But when you're interviewing an author or someone, they've usually done this.

They're conversant.

They know that they need to have, you know, a little bit better sound.

They need to be in a quiet place, those kind of things.

So for the paranormal podcast, usually when you bring somebody on the line, they're 90% of the way there.

But on Campfire, you know, these are average people reporting, and that's a real challenge because sometimes they're talking into a potato.

So God bless.

So, I mean, you have to do more tricks.

You know, obviously you want to get the best source you can get.

And it's improved a lot with Zoom and Riverside and different things.

They.

They've all improved so much.

But there's a great program that's a tech, A tech tip for podcast out there.

Check out Authonic.

And I think you get so many hours for free.

We're above that part now and paying for it, obviously, but.

Yeah, but we master all our shows with it and it does some really amazing things with sound reduction, echo reduction, Authonic.

It's a great service, but I'm sorry.

No, that's okay.

Yeah, we'll put it in the notes.

I was just.

Yeah, I guess I was just saying, like, the tools available to you now are absolutely exceptional.

You know, one of the tools that you may or may not be aware of is that there's a new restoration plugin called Ascendize DX Revive.

I don't know if you've come across yet.

Obviously, if you're using Auphonic, maybe you don't need it, but what it does is it actually repairs bad audio utilizing AI.

So, like, if you have somebody coming through on a potato and they're missing words or it's not quite coming through, it will fix your audio.

It's actually pretty exceptional.

So not sure if it's part of your stack yet, but check it out.

See, this is the thing.

When you talk to other podcasters, you always learn something.

Yes.

Well, you know, I mean, I would say it's very similar to Adobe Podcast, but maybe without the artifacts so much.

Yeah, I play with Adobe Podcast and it.

It's kind of like a more.

Kind of less granular version of auphonic, but I found it was introducing things that people didn't say.

And it's like, I can't use this.

That's right.

Hopefully, you know, I mean, Adobe, if you're listening, you know, we love it.

It's a great tool.

It just a little bit more.

Yeah.

And again, I'm going to use it for a long time because I started when initially came out like, nope, I don't think so.

But maybe it's better by now.

I don't know.

Ah, that's it.

Right?

It all gets better in time.

You know, Jim, one of the other things I wanted to talk to you about, you mentioned at the beginning, but, you know, diversification is something that you, you've leaned heavily into.

Right.

In the beginning.

Said we would talk about it.

I would love to chat about, you know, the, the diversification of income that you've managed to generate through podcasting and how you've managed to sustain.

Seen it for.

For, you know, 15 years so far.

Right.

Well, I mean, when we first started out, it was solely hosted red ads which were kind of like the coin of the realm back in the day, the, the baked in ads and those kind of things.

And certainly that's been an important part for years and continues to be an important part.

Then the plus club, you know, has become like the other, you know, was the other half that, that made it possible for me to start doing this full time.

And that's basically where what we say to folks is a couple things you get.

First of all, our most recent 13 episodes and of the Campfire and Paranormal Podcast will always be free.

When we come out with a new episode, the oldest episode will go behind the paywall.

That's the first thing you get access to that whole back catalog.

I think now at Paranormal podcast we've done 900 episodes and I think, wow, I think we're around seven something for Campfire now.

I'm just trying to look here and see.

Yeah, yeah, 725.

So that's just that.

And then we give you eight, eight additional pieces of content every month.

Now those have changed over the years.

We used to just do eight additional interviews and up until recently that's what we did.

And they were kind of like mini paranormal podcasts, you know, and we have different actual podcasts for those that we've done hundreds of episodes where ancient mysteries on the air, the other side, the Cryptid report, ufo, the UFO show, encounters that we do, UFO encounters.

And then we found people weren't listening to those as much.

So what we did is we freshened that up.

And what we're doing now is we have three of those a month that go out.

If you're plus club member, nobody else can get those, just plus members.

Then we have five other additional pieces of content.

What we're doing is we're going back from the very first Campfire.

We started this.

And to your point about the restoration tools, what we're doing is, is we're calling Campfire Remastered.

So we start with episode one back in May, and every month we release, in chronological order, two of those episodes.

Re release them.

Now they're available unvarnished in their original version in the.

But we're doing new versions of them where we take out any external ads.

Because, remember, all these ads were baked in, so I can't just push a button and get rid of all the ads.

So we're going.

We're editing out the gas and we're also doing audio restoration on each one of them as best we can.

Yeah.

So now not only do you get the whole back catalog of Campfire, but every month you can get the improved version of these early episodes.

And we're just doing that two, you know, to a month.

And at this rate, we could do that for what, years?

Yes.

And get through that back catalog.

And then we also do.

I call Campfire's hidden gem, which I'll take one.

One story from the back catalog that's not been in the books.

It's not been heavily promoted.

Because certain stories we go back to, you'll be familiar with some of them.

These are ones that maybe we forgot about but listened again, said, well, that's really good.

We do the audio restoration on that.

We do two of those a month.

And now I do a behind the scenes with my wife Dar, and it's basically no theme, nothing.

We just get on the mic and Talk for about 20 minutes about stuff going on in life that has nothing to do ostensibly with the paranormal.

Normal.

Yeah, yeah.

And that.

So that.

So basically, if you are a plus member, you get access to all of our back catalog, which is about 1600 episodes plus you get these, you know, over a thousand exclusive episodes.

So it's over 2, 700 pieces of content.

Wow.

And last year, when we switched over our plus club to a new vendor, the one vendor told us, and this vendor, I won't say who is.

They were quite.

With huge companies, multimillion dollar companies that have podcasting things.

Your plus club has more content than anybody we've ever worked with.

Wow.

And we've not raised the price once.

It's the same price it was in 2011, which was funny because we priced it at 7.95amonth back in 2011, or 79.50 a year.

And there's some promo codes and coupons to.

To get deals on your first year, first month, depending on how you sign up.

But the funny thing was, at that time I thought.

Cause I was looking at how much Netflix was charging back in the day when they were still doing CDs and stuff, DVDs.

I'm like, this is kind of expensive.

But now, over time now it's like, boy, this is really a pretty good bargain.

And it is.

I mean, people.

I mean, the biggest we get very few people saying, oh, this is a ripoff.

I can't remember the last person who said that.

It's a ripoff.

They might say, I can't afford this anymore.

I'm having tough times.

Which we understand.

But universally, people say, there's so much to listen to.

I can't believe it.

Yeah, so that's the plus club, 2700 plus.

Then the host read the other thing that is becoming more important for us, which we didn't do right away in a strong way, but in the last year or so, dynamic ads, the programmatic ads, have come to be much more important, certainly not more than the host red.

Still the host red is the dominant.

But where we don't have host red are shows where we don't have host red agreements.

We put those in.

And we're still very selective.

I try to be as selective as I can about the categories we accept.

Because if anybody's done dynamic advertising, you can go in and say, well, I don't want this and we don't want that.

And there's certain things that I don't want to promote.

Certainly we don't want to promote the competitors to our host red ads.

But I mean, categories I'm not comfortable in promoting.

Like, I don't promote supplements and things like that.

Or, you know, you hear different ads for these psychics and things.

And if we can figure out where they're at, we click that off.

We try to click off anything we feel.

You know, there's some borderline cases, like, I don't have a problem with having an alcohol ad on the show.

Some people might have a problem with that.

I don't.

I mean, I look as if you watch a football game or a hockey game, you can see ads for that.

So.

But they're categories we definitely click off because I Don't want to sound like an AM radio station scrapping the bottom of the.

And most of the stuff I hear from big national brands, which I love.

It's great to hear that on your show, even if it's programmatic.

So that's become a big part for us and, you know, we're.

Again, I'm hoping that, you know, a lot of podcasters are doing a lot with personal appearances.

I hope that can be more of the revenue stream coming up.

So, always looking at new ways to diversify.

And we have a couple other things I got to kind of keep under my hat for now.

But always looking at new ways because these things ebb and flow.

Right.

Dynamic ads are up, host red is down.

You know, you've got to learn to roll with the punches.

But to me, the most important sources are things you can directly control, like A plus club.

Things that somebody just can't come in and say, oh, well, you know, we don't, you know, because you could have a great sponsor.

The thing I learned about advertising, see, sales, it's all about the relationship.

And you could have an agency that you've done great business with and you're known among the staff, or this could be a direct company.

Let's say it's a direct company.

That's even a better example.

And you get along with the marketing people.

They see the.

They like you, they know you, they trust you, they believe that your show is a fit.

They've seen the benefits over the years.

And then they get bought out.

And then somebody else comes in and says, we're not doing things the oa, the old guys did buy, and there's literally nothing you can do about it.

Yeah.

And I think anybody that's been in a business development position has had that experience or known somebody that's had that experience where.

That's why if you're talking about ad agency, if you're talking about come, you cannot rely on one client.

Client.

Yeah.

You cannot rely on one income source, because chances are, even if it's great today, it's not always going to be as great as it is now.

So if you've got that great client or that great revenue stream, use that as Runway to build a second and a third and a fourth revenue stream.

Yeah, I absolutely love that and I agree completely.

And, you know, we know somebody, too, who, like, is relatively new in my podcasting.

Right.

Three years in, in still, still cutting my teeth.

Obviously, it doesn't pay for itself.

I still make a lot of my money through coaching and Retainer contracts and things along those lines.

But I bet your podcast helps you get those opportunities 100%.

And that was what I was going to say, is that most of those opportunities came because I took the leap into podcasting.

So, yeah, there you go.

Is there other ways that podcasts make money besides ads?

And the answer is yes.

I think that's one of the most common ways.

I mean, with me, since I'm not a paranormal investigator or something, it's not like somebody's going to hire me to investigate their house or something.

I mean, there's no.

And I've never really pushed.

I guess I had considered it.

I could push the podcast consulting thing because I think I could do a pretty good job of that.

But I've never tried because it's like, I think it's important I stick to my knitting and do what I do.

You know, never say that I wouldn't do it, but.

But right now, I don't think that that's.

That's the move.

But I do want to reiterate one thing.

As much as I talk business here, I do still believe in all this stuff.

Yeah, I am still interested in this stuff.

So it's back to.

We've been talking the gym business side of the brain, which is totally there.

And I'm totally, as you can probably tell, locked into the business side of it, but I'm equally locked into the other side of it.

And I don't think, even if it was successful as a business, I could have done it for this long if I wasn't still truly interested in all the spooky stuff.

Stuff, yes.

Which makes it kind of cool.

Totally, totally.

Like you.

You have to have both.

It has to be both.

Because if it's not, podcasting isn't.

It's not, like, the easiest thing on planet Earth.

It's not necessarily the funnest thing on planet Earth when you're trying to hit consistent production schedules.

Right.

There has to be more to it than that.

You have to truly enjoy what you're doing.

I don't think I could have got this far, you know, so far without really loving podcasting and really just believing in it and loving the people that I meet and.

And, you know, I mean, the reality that we connected, you know, I'm in Canada, you're in the United States.

This connection probably couldn't have happened without podcasting.

Right.

It's amazing what it can ultimately do for you.

But I think this is a great segue, Jim, into the spooky.

I want to I think I want to get into the spooky with you because obviously someone who's listened to podcasts, listened to, you know, Jim Harold's Campfire, the paranormal podcast.

I'm a total spooky nerd.

Nerd.

My favorite podcast.

I'd have to say.

You are actually my favorite podcaster.

If I could only pick one show, I would listen to your shows.

So I appreciate it immensely.

What the heck got you into the paranormal?

Like, how did you become, you know, the king of the spooky?

Because you really have.

How.

What was it about paranormal that just drew you in?

Did you have your own experiences that pulled you in?

What was it?

Well, a couple things.

First of all, all, as a kid growing up, I just loved In Search of with Leonard Nimoy.

Now, I have to admit, when that show was on, I was very, very young.

I want to stress how young I really was.

Almost right out of the.

Out of the.

The.

The.

The.

The.

What do they call it?

Maternity War.

Yeah.

But no, I. I was fascinated by that show, and it kind of, you know, informed me that there is more to our lives than what you can weigh on a scale or measure in a test tube.

I really, truly believe that.

And I believe there are forces we don't understand.

Now, does that mean that every time somebody thinks they see a Bigfoot, it's really a Bigfoot?

Maybe not.

Maybe sometimes it's a bear, maybe sometimes it's a deer.

Does that mean every time somebody thinks they see a ghost, they really see a ghost?

Maybe not.

Maybe sometimes they're mistaken.

But I think sometimes people really do see these things.

They really do experience them.

And that's even been driven home more for me from the campfire.

So I.

When I was thinking back in, oh, five, what I was going to podcast about, I thought, well, you know, every time I go into a library, every time I go to a bookstore, and, you know, in the nascent days of Internet browsing, when I browse on the Internet, I find a lot of time I'm looking for paranormal stuff, and I'm fascinated by it.

So wouldn't it be neat to interview these people?

And, you know, it'll be fantastic, and within six months, I'll have all this stuff figured out.

Didn't work out that way.

I have more questions now than when I started.

But I lucked out.

I got unbelievable guests out of the gate.

I got.

Stanton Friedman, I think, was my second guest.

He's the guy who basically put Roswell on the map.

A great UFO researcher, Lloyd Auerbach.

One of the greatest parapsychologists out there, has been on numerous TV shows and so forth, still doing it.

And really, I think one of the great unsung heroes.

And I was just amazed at the people because nobody knew what a podcast was.

And now when you try to approach somebody about being on a podcast, it's like, oh, not another podcast.

And back then the challenge is, what is a podcast?

Yeah, you didn't find them.

But yeah, I used to joke.

The thing I used to face is I'd say, well, I've got podcasts.

And you're like, what's a podcast?

Why would you do that?

And now I tell people I have a podcast.

Podcast.

Well, yeah, everybody has a podcast.

My sister has a podcast, my brother has podcasts, my daughter has a podcast.

I have a podcast.

You want to listen?

But I would have had like that middle period, like, oh, that's impressive.

But I just skipped right over that period when nobody had one.

Everybody had one.

But back to your answer.

It's just I've always had this innate belief that there's more to the eye.

And it actually goes back to a couple of stories from my parents, not my personal experiences, although I've had a couple of weird coincidences that have happened.

One that happened to my dad, you know, and my dad, fortunately, is still with us.

He's approaching his 90th birthday.

Wow.

And he told this story in the early 60s, he lived in an apartment over a bar.

He and my uncle came to our town here in Cleveland, Ohio, to work in the steel mills, which were, you know, going gangbusters back then.

And, you know, there were guys just starting out, so they got a cheap apartment over a local bar.

So.

And it was very small, like two rooms.

And one was in one room and one was in the other.

And there was only one way to get in out of the apartment.

So it wasn't like it had 72 doors or anything just to set it up.

And.

And it's funny, a campfire.

People say, well, let me set it up for you.

And then I'll give you a 20 minute explanation, the layout of their house.

But God bless, bless him.

God bless.

But anyway, God bless them.

I do love our callers, I really do appreciate them.

But anyway, so one night they're both in bed and my dad wakes up and there's an old man standing over him with glasses on, smiling, like, laughing at him.

Now, my dad in his day, like, 220 pounds, 6 foot tall, muscle steel worker, former football player, tough guy, you Know at this point he's like, like what, 26 years old.

I wouldn't want to be on the other end of that punch.

He swings a punch, thin air.

And he yells out to my uncle, john, John, there's somebody in here.

There's somebody in here.

And my uncle gets up and he has a few nonable words here.

Just imagine what the.

There's nobody in here.

Blah, blah, blah.

Sorry.

About two or three weeks ago by, my dad's asleep.

All of a sudden he hears a commotion in the other room.

My uncle's like, jim, get up.

There's somebody in here.

It was the same guy who was standing over him and smiling.

And my uncle, who was 62 and 240lbs and a former football player, swung him.

And there was nothing there either.

Wow.

And the thing of it was.

And there's another story.

I'll tell you real quick.

My parents have.

But my.

My dad didn't have pyramids under his bed.

He wasn't paranormal investigating.

I mean, he's just a working class guy.

He told his story the same.

If I go ask him about it right now, he might not remember, you know, what he had yesterday for dinner, but he'll remember that story and he'll tell it exactly the same way.

It's never changed.

Yeah.

Then another story with my mom and my dad.

Dad, this was probably around 1970 and I was just a baby.

So there I. I outed my age, but I was very youthful baby.

But anyway, so my family was originally from.

I was.

And I was born and raised in Ohio, but my family's from West Virginia.

So they went back to visit my grandma.

And he left baby Jimmy with grandma.

And my mom and dad went off to this very secluded area.

Very dark area.

I don't want to know why.

But anyway, I don't know what they were up to.

I don't want to know.

So anyway, they were parked and it was pitch black.

And if anybody's ever been in super rural areas, there's no street lights, there's nothing.

When it's dark, it's dark.

So my dad was driving this 68 Buick Lesaber land yacht.

And they're parked.

And he said a light came up in the sky.

And by the way, my mom and dad told this story exactly the same.

My mom, unfortunately has passed.

But they've told this story the same exact way with one variation, which I'll share.

Said a light lit up the whole sky.

Wow.

For a minute.

So much more that he could read the analog clock on his Dashboard.

Yeah.

And when they used to have analog clocks in cars and in the speedometer.

And then now my mom doesn't.

Didn't know this part or didn't see this part.

He said he turned to his left and right by the corner of the car, there was a man.

What he described a man in a welding mat mask with his hand up.

And then they said, okay, we've seen enough, we've seen enough.

Let's get out of here.

So he's like burning rubber and getting out of there.

And then my mom says in her West Virginia accent, then, Jimmy, we saw the biggest bunch of birds up on that bank of that hill I ever seen in my life.

And they had like, you know, six or eight foot wingspan, these birds.

Like thunderbirds.

Yeah.

And then they thought that it was some kind of experiment or something.

Or something blew up and they would see something on the news.

They never saw anything.

Nothing ever happened.

And that was a story.

And my dad has never changed his retelling in the story.

And my mom, until she passed, never.

And again, my dad was a little bit interested in things like in search of and stuff like.

Like that and Unsolved Mysteries.

My mom had no interest.

And still they both told the same story.

And that to me, those were two quintessential campfire stories.

Yes.

That I was like groomed with from the time that I was a little kid.

And I think somewhere that that planet in me.

Well, my parents wouldn't lie to me, they wouldn't make this up.

And I know they wouldn't make it up.

Now I could see somebody saying I thought I saw a ghost and misinterpreted.

I could get that maybe the first story, it could have been a dream or something.

I mean, it could have been a shared dream.

That second story.

I know how you explain that.

Yeah.

But regardless, people you trust telling you stories you believe.

And I think that made a.

Made a mark on me.

That's probably way longer answer than you wanted.

But that's that along with Leonard Nimoy, that's, that's what I blame for my fascination with the paranormal.

Well, I know me and Shelby have questioned many times how you go to sleep at night with so many scary stories in your.

In your brain though.

Because in a way, you know, this is going to sound weird.

It's not the first time I've been accused of being weird.

But it's very reassuring to me because what would be less assuring is if I thought that our life represented what we see here every day was the whole thing.

You know, I'm in my 50s.

If I'm lucky, I've got 30 years left.

If I'm lucky.

If I'm really lucky, maybe 40.

But I'd have to be really lucky.

And I'd hate to think that it's all over after that.

I don't think it's all over after that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Has, like.

Has.

Has your opinion of things changed?

I know the answer to this is probably yes.

You know, from the beginning of the show to now, you know, listening to your show over time, there's been two things specifically that have stuck out and freaked me out a little bit.

The first is time slips.

Yes.

The amount that they come up on campfire blows my mind.

Mind.

It's incredible, actually, how often time slips have come up on campfire.

Yep.

And it's like, what is happening there?

And the second one is the doppelganger.

I knew you were gonna say that.

I knew you were gonna say that.

I. I don't think I'd ever even heard of a doppelganger.

I've heard of it, but I never knew it was such a big deal.

But so many people have called in.

Here's a typical experience, and it's not one specifically anything, but here's what it'll be.

Be.

Well, my husband, you know, was at work, and I was home.

Or you could invert it.

It could be the.

The.

The wife was, you know, at work, and.

And then, you know, I heard them come in.

They may have even spoken.

Yeah.

And then I didn't hear any more from them.

And then 20 minutes, they came in and said, weren't you just here?

And they say, what are you talking about?

Yeah.

What is that all about now?

That now?

It could be a time slip, right?

Yeah.

It could be like a dimensional slip.

Like, if you believe in the multiverse, then it could be an alternate version of a universe where he or she did come home 20 minutes earlier.

You jump that track.

Or.

Some people think that it's like an imposter, like some evil kind of thing.

Thing.

We had one.

One of the most frightening ones.

This woman, her husband was in the military, and every morning he would go for a jog.

And one day she woke up, and she felt him in bed with her, spooning her.

Yeah.

That's kind of odd.

He usually doesn't do that.

And it felt just like her.

And then she realized that it was something that looked like her husband but was just a little bit off.

And she said a prayer.

Yeah, I know.

Isn't that something?

It's terrifying.

It's in the bed with you.

Oh, my God.

And then she said a prayer and the thing said, don't say that.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, I hate it.

I'm like, okay, get me out of here.

And eventually she poured some away.

Yeah.

In my mind, those doppelganger ones are the worst possible things that come up on Campfire.

They are just so, so bad.

Because it's like, what is worse than thinking it's somebody you know and love?

Yeah.

And it not being them.

Right.

Like, and it being, like you said, like a slightly off version.

Yeah.

Like.

Like I can't quite get it 100%.

Like, that just freaks the crap out of me.

Like I. I would rather just like a ghost any day of the world week.

Then like your own, like, you know, Shelby or the boys or something, and it's just like, it's not them.

Yeah.

Another one happened in very early days of Campfire.

I think this was because we have six books out.

I think it was in the first book, this woman.

Woman lived in a trailer, a mobile home.

And her daughter, who was at school, walks in the front door and proceeds to curse her up a blue streak.

And then she walks down the little hall and slams the her door.

And the mother thought, what was that all about?

About 10 minutes later, her daughter comes through the front door.

So, hey, mom, how you doing?

How's your day?

She's like, what are you talking about?

You just came in here 10 minutes ago and cursed me up a blue streak and ran to your room.

And she said, I have no idea what you're talking about.

And they went back to the room and there was no one there.

Yeah.

Yikes.

Now that.

But that doppelganger thing is kind of a little microcosm of how I think about these things.

Like, maybe when the shows first started, I thought, oh, that's obviously an evil spirit.

Yeah.

And now I'm like, well, it's more like a multiple choice question.

And could it be all of the above?

So there's a quote that I heard that it kind of.

Because I believe more so than ever this stuff is real.

Again, does it mean that every account is real?

No.

But are there a certain amount of accounts?

And I always default to belief when I talk to people on the show.

I am not Mike Wallising them.

It's old American journalist.

I'm not like, confronting them and say, well, really, you know, I don't do that.

Yeah.

I'm treating this as though they're telling the Truth.

And I believe the vast, vast majority are telling the truth as they experience.

Experienced it.

But does this mean that every ghost story is really a ghost or every cryptid story is really cryptid, or every UFO story is really an alien?

No, but I do believe that there is a percentage that there's absolutely something to.

That we cannot explain through normal explanations.

And, and I believe that more so than I ever have believed.

But as to the explanation for that them, I am less convinced than ever.

There's a great quote that kind of gets that across.

I forget who said it.

Not only is the universe stranger than we understand, it is stranger than we can understand.

And I wonder if that's really the truth of it.

But it's fun.

It's fun trying to figure it out.

Yeah, well, and the funny thing too is like, only one has to be true for it to be true.

Right?

That's right.

And that's like, you know, when you consider how many people and you might actually know what, you might have this number at the top of your head.

How many people have you interviewed for Campfire?

Well, if you think, it's gotta be thousands.

Yeah, if you think.

Okay, well, in the early days, the show was only a half hour.

Then I expanded 45 minutes, went to our.

Now we average about 10 callers.

So let's say the average is six or seven callers.

Let's say it's six, seven.

So that would be about 5,000.

Wow.

Now it might be more, it might be less, but it's been.

It's definitely in.

Then that's just Campfire.

I mean, we certainly have the other shows that we've done, you know, over 2,000 episodes on, but yeah, it's.

It's definitely into the thousands of stories and the, the great thing I love about the Campfire and I, I hope that this is part of the reason you guys keep listening all these years.

There's always something different.

Yeah, you think, you know, oh, okay, here we've got another story about this.

And then the person will make a left, sharp left turn and they'll go in a totally different direction.

Like, oh my God, I wasn't seeing that.

And that's what I think, continues to make it interesting, is that there's so many different experiences.

Yeah, there's.

There's certain stories fall into certain categories, but there's still a ton of variety and.

And again, always new things.

Always new things.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, you know, like, I, I grew up.

I had experiences growing up, and I actually had one.

I want to say about four or five years ago now, we used to have a board game night at our.

At our place in.

When I lived in Spruce Grove, we used to have a board game night.

Me and my.

Me and my roommate and my friends.

So every Friday, we'd sit down, we'd pull up the board games.

We'd order pizza, beer, whatever, and play board games.

It was an awesome time.

And.

And this one night, it was a blizzard outside, and we hadn't really had any experiences in this house before then, but there was just a wicked blizzard outside.

It had been snowing for three or four hours.

I know you're very familiar with that in Ohio, so.

So obviously, if somebody was to walk up to the house, there would be footprints.

You would see it.

Yeah, it's about 9, 9:30, 9:50.

Somewhere in there.

We're playing board games, and there are three loud knocks on the front door, and the dogs absolutely lose it.

They run to the door, they're jumping up, and I'm like, mike, like, who's here?

Like, who.

Who in the world is at our house?

It's like 9:50 at night on a Friday night.

It's just us.

We're playing board games.

My roommate goes down.

He looks out the window, and he looks back at me, just white as a ghost.

He goes, kelly, there's no footprints.

There's no one here.

And he is the biggest skeptic, Jim.

And to this day, I.

He.

He'll, like, tell that story.

I'll tell that story.

And he will just look like he's mad because he can't.

He can't.

He can't rationalize what happened.

But absolutely something happened that night.

Somebody knocked in our front door who was not there.

And that's one of the big things that I say on the show, is that, you know, you could run into some of the most skeptical people you want, but if you start talking, something like this might come out of their mouth.

Well, I don't believe in any of this stuff, but there was this one time.

That's right.

And then I'll tell you of this crazy campfire story.

Yeah, yeah.

No, it's been.

It's been incredible.

Shel, do you want to tell yours from when you were in Hinton?

Well, it did occur to me because the time slip aspect was coming up of the paranormal, and I did have an experience when I was about 18.

And it's one of those things where you do really rationalize it, and you kind of think, did that actually happen?

You know, a number of years go by and you think, think, you know, I know it happened, but, you know, did it.

You start to question yourself.

But yeah, I'm 18, I'm with some friends.

We're on our way to a house party.

And so of course we're on our way to the house party.

So there's no substances involved yet at this point in the night.

And it's very dark outside, you know, kind of a quiet, smaller part of the town.

Hinton, Alberta is not a very big city to begin with, but we're in even a more rural, remote sort of area of the town and side of the road.

Strangest thing, a whole family, of course, headlights illuminating just a portion of the road because it's so dark.

No street lights.

Same thing.

Just as we're, you know, we're, we're heading down the street peripherally.

Whole family dressed in, you know, those late era or early era, I suppose you would say.

They attire almost like look like they're waiting for a bus or like they're traveling, you know, full, full dresses, suits, and just a whole family.

And of course we're just going by.

So you see them and you're like, what did we just see?

Like, what, what's that?

Made no sense.

Middle of the night.

And I've just always.

It stuck with me.

And I think it's these things stick with you because, you know, they're illogical.

Like that something just happened that didn't quite make sense.

We have someone who called in and said that they believe that they saw dinosaurs.

Oh my goodness.

And you know what I mean, I know that sounds wacky, but I'm not going to say that they didn't see dinosaurs.

I mean, maybe there was some kind of weird time slip.

It reminds me in other words, or another example of being accepting.

There was a great story guy told.

And this was.

Goes back.

He was even older than I am.

No, but this goes back to the late 60s for him.

When he was a little kid.

He said he used to see what he interpreted as a leprechaun.

And he kind of was ashamed to tell anybody.

He never told his brother.

And then 20 years later, they were having dinner together for some holiday or something, he said, I got something I've been wanting to tell you for years.

Got to get it off my chest.

Chest.

When I was a kid, I used to see a leprechaun.

He used to come and visit me at night.

And the brother looked at him, he's like, oh my God, you saw him too?

And he wasn't joking.

And the thing was, was it an actual leprechaun?

Probably not.

But might have it been some kind of entity or something that presented itself in that way or something close to that and him as a little kid interpreted it that way?

Absolutely.

So, again, I just think.

And it, it's cool in a way.

I mean, it's scary sometimes, but it's also cool to think that we live in a world that still has so much mystery that we've not encountered.

We see this with the space probes and the recent findings on Mars and in things we just don't understand as much as we think we do.

I think sometimes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, that is a great place to.

To end today's show.

Jim, honestly, honor, privilege.

This show wouldn't exist without you.

Thank you so much for everything you've done for podcasting and frankly for just being such a major part of not only my show, but my family.

Well, it is a great honor on all scores.

I hope everybody gets to check out, particularly this time of the year.

Jim Harold's Campfire, I think that's kind of the.

The main show to check out and you graduate to the other ones when you get a chance.

But there's always free episodes up minutes every week of spooky stories.

Check it out.

And to both of you, Kelly and Shelby, thank you.

I'm honored by being on the show.

I'm even more honored that the campfire has a place in your family.

And happy Halloween and stay spooky.

Happy Halloween and stay spooky.

Jim, thank you so much.

Until next time, you've been listening to the business development podcast and we'll catch you on the flip side.

This has been the Business Development Podcast with Kelly Kennedy.

Kelly has 15 years in sales and business development experience within the Alberta oil and gas industry and founded his own business development firm in 2020.

His passion and his specialization is in customer relationship generation and business development.

The show is brought to you by Capital Business Development, your business development specialists.

For more, we invite you to the website at www.capitalbd.ca.

see you next time on the Business Development podcast.