Stacey Harris: It’s a big one, talking about the biggest mistake you may be making to get sales from your podcast and an opportunity to sit down with me. Totally free! Listen in.
Welcome. Welcome. I want to dig in today just quick and dirty style because I’m sharing some theme from some chats I had in September. When I opened up to my email list, some pre-production strategy calls totally free. These are 30-minute calls where we dug into what they will going to be selling in Q4, what’s happening with their podcast now. And I gave them some tips and some suggestions on ways they can make their show better.
The cool thing is, is doing this again this month. My calendar was opened last week for our existing clients – our production clients. And now, this week, I am opening a limited number of these for free. Totally free. Pre-production strategy calls, these are 30-minute calls. You’re going to send me a link to an episode, I’m going to listen to the show, and then you and I will sit down and we’ll talk through some tweaks, some changes, some suggestions. And one of those will very likely be what we’re talking about today. Because this came up on pretty much everything call.
So, if you want to get your hands on one of these production calls, check the calendar. If the calendar is still open, there is still time available. If the calendar is not open, the spots have been filled and you should listen to the episodes earlier when they come out, and/or get on the email list, head over to uncommonlymore.com/newsroom, get access to the private podcast, the podcast Newsroom, and find out very, very first when I open up these spots because… here’s the deal. Podcast Newsroom folks found out about this, November 1st. So if you would like to know these things bright and early as well, make sure you are subscribed to the podcast Newsroom. All right? And once more, uncommonlymore.com/newsroom. There is a link in the show notes so just go right to your little player feed, open the description, click a link. If that link is still opening a calendar, you’re good. If the spots are filled though, the spots are filled, and you’ll have to wait to see if I offer this again. Or if you like desperately want to get one, we will redirect that when they’re full to our 1-hour strategy session calls. Does that sound fair? I think that sounds fair. All right. So, grab your spot.
If you would like to sit down with me, and let’s hop in because when I did these calls, there was a couple of things that came up, not infrequently, they were pretty common, but there was one thing that came up on every single call. All of them. And that was, be more clear about what’s next. In so many podcast episodes, I’m hearing these sort of throw away calls to action. These quick 30 second promos, and imagine heavy air quotes around that, shoved at the end of an episode when likely very little of your audience remains anyway. And let’s be honest, the ones that are still there want to know what’s next. So giving them like, “And if you think it could be helpful, then yeah, just go over to my website.” And that’s it. Like, that’s the whole problem. That is not enough. You’ve got to be really clear on what’s next, because if you’re not, they’re going to miss it. And this is where we end up creating these sort of value pits that are a massive disservice to our listeners.
And I want to say that again because I want this to really sink in. When you create these value pits, when you create these endless pools of information, you are doing a huge, ginormous, catastrophic disservice to your listener. Because we know, as experts, that our clients are all universally really good. Really, really, really good at sitting in a learning phase or a discovery phase, and not shifting into action. It’s really easy to do. We’re guilty of, I’m guilty of it. And when we create these sort of pits of value or just information being fire-hosed at them, it’s impossible to dig out of that and move into action because we don’t yet know what the action is because we’re swimming in the ability to pretend we’re doing something by learning about it. That’s not helpful. And so you have to disrupt that pattern, you have to interrupt the flow of information with an action, and that action is what they’re supposed to do next, signing up for a pre-production call with me. That promo I did before we got into this. That’s what I want to hear from you, a solid call to action. Here’s where you go. Here’s what’s next. It really is that simple.
And so, what I want you to be looking at is how can you be pulling these calls to action in in a way that is more obvious and is more valuable for your listener. That may be doing a promo at the beginning of your episode, that may be having a knocked-out mid-roll sponsor spot that is just about your offering, that may be a more solid promo at the outro. It may be integrating your promo into your content, you know, like I did a few minutes ago when I reference the call to action that I had at the beginning of the episode, which will also we talk about at the end of this episode. Yeah. As I’m sure you’ve caught on, this episode is one big call to action.
It’s a wildly valuable call to action because it’s showing you what you need to be doing. It is modeling the behavior change that I suggest. But it’s all about, “Hey, here’s the results of booking these conversations with me.” What’s hilarious is I’ve gone through and listened to a few episodes that have come out since I had these production calls with these clients, and guess what? They have much stronger calls to action now. They have a clear next step for their listener. They have an action their listeners can take. And I cannot wait to check in with them after the first of the year and see what changed for them in this corner in doing that, in creating that really clear and actionable next step.
And that’s what I want you to be looking at. As you move through these next two months, as you close out 2021, I want you to commit to having a strong call to action in every single episode. And for advanced bonus points, I want you to have too. Now, point of clarification, these two can be the same, these two can be different. It just depends. I have seen this be really valuable both ways. Let’s use this episode as an example. One of the things I could do is we have the call to action at the top of the episode for these free pre-production calls, which kind of paired with a call to action to join the email list, because that’s how you get access to the first call to action sooner. So I had two calls to action and one promo. But they make sense together in the context of what’s happening.
Another example of this could be having a promo at the top of the episode for a free opt-in and a promo at the end of the episode that is an investment. So, we have some clients who did this really well. An example of this is Tara Newman over The Bold Money Revolution. For her show, we will often put in a promo for her Revenue Goal Calculator, which is awesome by the way, at the top. And then, the content itself helps sell, what really position her program, and that you’ll have a call to action that is– If this resonated, here’s how to join the Bold Profit Academy. Here’s how to take your next step. And so, she’s really tying these conversations in together. This episode is an example of where she does that really well.
There’s got to be moments in your show where you tell them what’s next. Because if you don’t tell them what’s next, they’re never going to move out of this data collection, this learning chapter, and into the action. So look at how can you be moving them into action multiple points in the episode. All right? I told you this one was going to be quick and dirty. This was, again, the thing that came up on every single one of these pre-production calls. And so I knew, I knew, knew, knew I had to bring it to you this month because it’s going to be a game-changer for a lot of you.
We will have a couple more of these episodes over the next couple of months where we’re recapping things that came up on these pre-production calls because I think it’s really helpful. So, if you want to volunteer to be one of these pre-production strategy calls, remember to go to check the calendar. Again, if those spots are filled, make sure you’re on the email list for the next time I open them up. And of course, if you are ready and like, “I don’t want to screw around with a pre-production call, I just want to be making big changes on my show,” we have three spots left to work with us this year. If you want to start 2022, start on with your podcast, maybe so in love with your podcast again, which is a side effect of hiring us, by the way. Make sure you head over to uncommonlymore.com/podcastproduction to know more about that. All right? See all those next steps, pick which one works for you and take it. All right. I’ll see you next week.