Welcome to Episode 537. I want to talk a little bit about some of the myths, the lies, the BS pieces. Personally, I tend to think that Facebook groups are frequently to blame for a lot of these because they are just not super helpful. We’re going to dig through those. Before we dig into that, I do want to remind you, if you have not yet subscribed to the Podcast Newsroom, we have a brand new episode dropping tomorrow, the day after this episode releases. September 1st will be our next episode.
It’ll be the three things you need to know for September. If you want to know what you need to do as we move into this next month to grow your show, build a more profitable podcast, and just some of the news of September, what’s happening right now in the podcast space, make sure you are subscribed over at uncommonlymore.com/newsroom. It’s the only way to get access. This is actually a private podcast, so you can’t just go to your podcast player of choice and search for it. You will need to get the link specifically from us. So uncommonlymore.com/newsroom is the way to do that.
I want to dig into this because these are some big ones. I’m going to try really hard not to get ranty. Okay, deal. You and me, we’re in this.
Podcast Lie Number 1: Inconsidtncy is fine as long as I keep showing up with my most inspirational work.
First things first. This one kills me, “Too much planning will kill my creativity. Inconsistency is fine as long as I keep showing up with my most inspirational, most impactful, most inspired work.” This is nonsense. It’s actual nonsense. It’s really hard to sit down and be creative. It’s even harder to just sit down and be creative in a way that grows your business, in a way that serves your listeners, in a way that moves them from consumer to client. Because consumers are not who you’re here to serve, you’re here to serve your clients. The podcast allows you to start doing that before they actually pay you. It allows you to start giving them a taste of what’s on the other side of their investment. That is not just showing up with your most inspired work whenever it happens to come to you.
Frequently, I find that these podcasters are who end up on calls with me wondering why they’re not getting clients from their show, why downloads aren’t growing. In fact, the opposite is happening. Every time they release a show, they get fewer listeners, fewer downloads, less feedback, fewer clicks, less traffic, and they’re getting crickets when it comes to clientele. That’s because you’re building a show and a process that serves you, not your listener.
You’re building a podcast because you want to be able to have a place to show up and talk to your audience when it suits you, which is fine. But it’s a hobby, it’s not a marketing tool. It’s a hobby. It is a vent space. It is not content marketing. It is not strategically building assets that grow your business, that serve your clients, and that helps your consumers through the decision making process so that they can make the jump from consumer to a client and actually see results from their work with you. That’s what this myth costs you.
I titled this show somewhat dramatically, The Three Lies Podcasters Tell Themselves that will Ruin Their Show. This one will ruin your show for real, for real. No BS, no scare tactics, no doom and gloom here. It’s just facts. It’s a different kind of show if that’s what you want it to be because again, it’s for you and not for your listener. We have a whole episode I did on this called This Is Your Show. We’ll link to it in the show notes. But this is your show. This isn’t my show. Quite frankly, the Podcast Newsroom is more my show than this show is because the Podcast Newsroom is where I get to go and I get to talk about what’s happening right now in podcasting and be a little more in the weeds with you as part of the nerdy stuff. Working with me as a client is my favorite way to have these conversations. When we do our quarterly calls, I’m going, “Ooh, let’s play with these pieces. What are we doing? How do we get there? Why don’t we reuse this series that we did? Maybe it needs blah-blah-blah.” Those things are far more for me than this is. This is for you.
Now, you may not always like what’s for you. This episode might be an example of that because you might be sitting there and you might be saying to yourself, “But when I sit down with the strategy, that’s the last thing I want to talk about.” I get that. Here’s the deal. More than once, I have sat down at this microphone to talk to you. It was the last thing I wanted to talk about. In full disclosure, this episode is not the episode I want to be recording right now. I’ve got some for September. That sounds way more fun to me than this one. But it’s not for me. It’s for you. You need to know this because somebody out there, I don’t know who and when I find them, we’re going to have words, is telling people just to follow their inspiration. To just record whatever. That’s not going to help you.
There is a difference between saying, “I’m going to just put together a show, start recording it for 12 episodes, and talk to my audience. We’re just going to try this out. I’m going to totally DIY it.” That’s not the same as saying, “I want to follow my inspiration.” Because even if you’re DIY-ing and you’re just trying it out, maybe you’re just recording into Anchor, you’re still thinking about, “What do they need to hear? What do I need to tell my listener?”
When I sit down, I’m getting ready to talk to you, I say, “What do they need to hear?” When I’m thinking about where my clients were before they became our clients when I sit down on a sales call with one person, where are they right now? What do they have going on right now? What do they need from me right now to help them have a better show? Not how do I get them to work with us. What do they need right now to have a better show? Sometimes, that’s to work with us. Oftentimes, it’s to work with us, but that’s because I also ask that question when I sit down to do this podcast.
When I sat down today to record this and I reviewed my outline, I asked again, “Is this what they need to hear right now? Is this the best way for me to communicate this to them right now?” I’m asking that every time. I want you to be doing the same because otherwise, it’s a show for you. That is not how you get a profitable podcast in this space, in this kind of structure.
Podcast Lie Number 2: There’s only one way to be successful with podcasting.
As we shift to number two, I think this is often the larger piece, that is this belief that there’s only one way to do it. Because generally, the real problem when we talk about “I just want to follow my inspiration. I just want to show up with my most inspired work,” the real problem is actually that they think there’s only one way to be strategic. They think there’s only one way to be consistent.
If you can let go of this idea that there’s only one way to be successful with your podcast, there’s only one way to be strategic with your show, there’s only one way to show up consistently for your listeners, you can start to embrace how you show up strategically. Because here is the real, real talk: If today’s episode was absolutely just not going to happen like I can’t get my head around how to do it but it did make me think of this other thing. I want to tell you that, and it would also be helpful to you, I’m going to do that show. I’m going to move this down.
This show was supposed to come out two months ago. This has been on my episode idea list for a while. This one’s been in the hopper. Quite frankly, there’s been a couple of versions of this show. I tweaked the outline for the show before I hit record. I was able to access that creativity to get that inspiration hit because I had the structure of the foundation beneath me, because I had something here to start with. Because I’d already started down the road, it was easier for me to keep going down the road instead of me having to, from scratch, think of today’s episode.
It wouldn’t have happened. It wouldn’t have been helpful. It wouldn’t have been for me. It wouldn’t have been for you. It would have been me venting about some Facebook ad I saw, which is for sure what inspired this post initially because I saw some stupid Facebook ad, which was quite frankly filled with nonsense to sell you a course on how to be a podcaster. It’s not going to serve your goals. Again, that’s for me and not for you. Start looking at, “How do I take what’s here for me and leave what’s not?” This is especially important in podcasting because a lot of the people who you’re looking to, a lot of the shows you’re pulling inspiration from, a lot of the experts you’re getting advice from are building and teaching podcast strategies that work for a different kind of show, that are looking to grab as many fish in the net as they can instead of going and looking for the right fish. They’re looking for quantity listenership instead of quality listenership.
A quantity listenership is hard to convert. You think 1% percent is bad. Now, fill it with a bad pool of prospects. I want you to be looking at, “How do I get the most high quality listenership?” Now, it doesn’t mean everything that anybody tells you is going to be BS. It means you need to be running things to the filter of, “How do I make this work for me?” Instead of just chasing this one right way to do things, pull it apart. Take what works. Leave what doesn’t. This is literally applicable to every part of our lives. It’s something I have told my 12-year-old. It’s something I have told myself and things completely unrelated to business. I want you to look for your way, not the one way. As we wrap up, we’ve talked a lot about how this show is for the listener. The Uncommonly More show is for YOU. It’s not for me. Your show is for your listeners. It’s not for you.
Podcast Lie Number 3: Your podcast is just a tool to nurture your audience.
Here’s where you’ve got to watch yourself though because the third lie that podcasters tell themselves is that their podcast is a nurture tool. It’s not. Your podcast is not about nurturing your audience. It’s about selling your audience. I don’t mean this in a sleezy way, whatever cliche we want to use for douchebag du jour. What I want you to be looking at instead is this is a sales tool. It is my job with this show to move you through the process of deciding whether the way we do things, think about things, and look at podcasts is for you. If I’m not here regularly telling you your next best steps, even, and maybe especially when those next best steps are to hire us, I am doing you a massive disservice. But if this is a nurture tool, if this is just about you and I becoming BFF, I’m never going to do that.
I’m never going to say, “It’s time to work with Uncommonly More.” I’m not. I’m not going to do the pitch at the beginning of the show to get you on the email list, to get the private podcast because the private podcast is a sale. It’s me asking you for something back. I want you to be looking at where you are educating your listener towards their next step because their ultimate next step is going to be working with you. If you’re not doing this, again, you’re doing them a massive disservice. I think so often, we think about, “Oh well, it’s their show. It should be just about me giving them value, then I can sell them in my email or my whatever or the two-second promo I put at the end of my episode, so they can feel like I sold them something.” No. You have to be educating them on what the next best step is and why it’s the next best step. It’s why we’ve done the episodes we’ve done around what working with Uncommonly More looks like. The episode where Cali and I talked about the actual process, and internals of what happens after you sign the contract or apply to get on a call with me.
We’ve been really transparent about that because this is a tool to educate you towards your next step. That doesn’t mean it’s a tool meant only to get everybody to go and apply because if every single person who listens to this podcast went and applied for production work tomorrow, we would be in a real rough spot. But if I don’t tell you what working with us is like, you also don’t know if it’s not for you. You also don’t know if maybe now’s not the right time. That’s why in 536, when we talked about the production and checking in with our production, we talked about some timeline stuff. We talked about if you’re sitting at 6 months, 12 months, 18 months, 24 months and you’re like, “This show works but it takes a lot of work,” it’s time to get production. On the flip side, if you’re sitting at an 18 mark, two year mark and you’re like, “I don’t actually know if this show works,” hit the pause button. Go find out.
You have to be educating your listener towards their ultimate solution, which is not going to come from your podcast. It’s going to come from working with you. It’s going to come from your membership. It’s going to come from your consultant work. It’s going to come from your services. It’s going to come from your coaching packages. It’s going to come from your retreat. It’s going to come from your course. It’s going to come from whatever it is you’re putting them into next. That’s where their next step to their solution is, not free content because ultimately, how much action are consumers taking versus how much action are clients taking? Your job is to educate them towards the process of becoming clients instead of consumers or going to consume something else. That last part got a little soap boxy but I think you got the point. This is really, really, really important because it’s what makes a profitable podcast and not a time suck pain in the ass one.
If as we’re going through today’s episode, you felt that twinge of like, “Aww, that one hurt,” reach out. Let’s talk. Let’s have a conversation. Head over to Uncommonly More. There are two ways to work with us. We’ve got, of course, our production services but also, maybe you just need somebody to sit down and get some clarity on some questions, say, “Hey, how do I build out my strategy? How do I see if this thing is working or not, to find out whether production is going to be impactful, beneficial, and a good investment of my time, money, and energy?” Then book a single session. But for most of the pain points you felt today, for most of the twinges, it’s going to be about getting some ongoing support. It’s going to be about partnering with a production team that is really there to support you and build a show that works for you, and works for your listener. To learn more about that, go to uncommonlymore.com. I will see you next week.
