What High-Performing Podcasts Do Differently (That You Can Steal)

As you might expect, I consume a fair amount of podcast content. I spend a fair amount of time talking to podcasters. And I thought, how about I bring four lessons from high-performing podcasts.

And by high-performing, just as a heads up, I don't mean downloads. I mean like making a difference in these brands and businesses for things that they're doing that we could steal. So I say today we steal some stuff.

Let's do it. Welcome to The More Profitable Podcast with Stacey Harris. I'm Stacey.

And this is the spot to learn more about the strategies, tactics, and tools you need to build your more profitable podcast. My team and I work every day with podcasters like you to shift shows from frustrating time sucks to productive members of your sales team. Because your show should be built to generate and convert leads.

So let's get into it. I want to start by setting some context. Because I think context is important.

Too many of the conversations I'm having with podcasters who are looking to be generating more business with their podcast think that that is about doing more. It is about doing more episodes. I'm seeing a lot of people thinking, you know what, I think I should go to twice weekly episodes.

Or for my pre-launch content, I'm going to do my regular episodes. Plus a special series of episodes. Plus a private podcast.

More and more and more. We're adding and adding and adding. And doing more of something that's not currently working is not going to get you better results.

It is not that they need more content from you. It is that they need different content from you. And so as I sat down and I was sort of evaluating some insights I've had from auditing podcasts, you know, from our clients, like our production clients' podcasts, from people I've been sitting down with in podcast strategy intensives, and also just like what I'm seeing in the market as I consume content, there were four pieces that I was like, these are the places where I want you to put that more energy.

And what you're going to realize is as we go through these four pieces, at no point will the more in this mean you creating more. You generating more stuff. Because that instinct to do more for the sake of more is almost always rooted in trying to prove ourselves.

And very rarely do we generate sales and leads when we're trying to prove how smart we are. Instead, what we want to be doing is delivering them the things they understand where they're at. And so I talk a lot about this when I talk about meeting them where they are content, right? These are those self-identification episodes.

These are those episodes where we're talking to them about where they are now and we're showing them what's possible on the other side. And that could be through education. That could be through training.

That could be through mindset. This is often what it is, is changing their beliefs about something. Frankly, today's episode is a really great example of this in the sense that yeah, we're going to be talking about some things.

But my big intent for this episode is for whoever listens to it to understand that more is not the option. That doing more, that making this harder is not the thing that's going to switch the lever over. And in fact, and this is frankly the biggest part of it, each of these four things, if done, allow you to get more in a simpler fashion.

So that your show is better leveraged. So that you're getting more juice for that squeeze. Because that's a game changer.

And it's something that allows us to see a real impact in our business without burning ourselves out to get there. Because that's what this constant push for more is. And so when we're talking about some of these mindset episodes, it's not about like suddenly adding some woo component.

Because I know when we start talking about mindset stuff and we start talking about some of these softer things, especially as experts who know our stuff, it's easy to be like, well, I don't want to get in the mindset drenches with them. I want them to understand the information I'm giving them. I want them to trust me as a resource.

When we talk about shifting beliefs, this is not airy-fairy. This is tactical. Because if you do not believe that XYZ is possible on the other side of ABC effort, you're not going to put in ABC effort.

And you're never going to reach XYZ outcome. And so this belief system and mindset stuff is some of the most important education you're going to be doing. And it's easier to get and stay in that place when you're not trying to prove how smart you are.

Because almost always, and this is the really frustrating part about this, almost always the mindset and belief shifts that you need your audience to make so that they can see you as the solution you are is going to feel pretty basic and it's going to feel somewhat repetitive because that's what it is to do this. Because the people who are hiring me are not already podcast production experts. That's why they're hiring me.

They're hiring me for perspective. They're hiring me for my expertise. And so it's not my job to meet them at expert level.

It's my job to meet them where they are now and to help them see that by shifting their current process, on the other side of that, being able to build a leverageable sales asset that delivers results over and over again is possible. And so as we're working through these pieces, I want you to keep that in mind. Nothing here is about adding to your current to-do list.

If anything, what we're talking about is probably going to be about refining something you're already doing or replacing something you're already doing. But in most cases, it's going to be refining because the people who I work with and I'm going to guess this is probably not super different for you, are not stupid. They're incredibly intelligent.

They're incredibly well-versed in their business and in what needs to be happening. And so I don't need to reinvent a whole lot. There is so much good stuff already there.

And again, I'm guessing this is probably true for you and your clients too. They're already in a place where they've got some stuff, they've got some pieces, and it's just about refining. And I talk about this a lot, but making that 1% shift because that's generally what makes a way bigger difference than lighting a match, burning it down and hoping the ashes turned into something great.

Before we dig in, I do want to let you know we are going to be bringing some new content over to the Podcast Newsroom, our private podcast this summer. So make sure if you are not currently subscribed, you do that, head on over to thepodcastnewsroom.com. I'm going to be changing it up a little bit over there. We've been doing some Q&A stuff through the first half of this year, but I've been seeing where there's some gaps training-wise.

And so I think we're going to be releasing some cool sort of one-off kind of training-focused episodes over there over the summer, tying some stuff into what we do in the podcast housekeeping series. So keep an eye out over there, make sure you are signed up. And in the meantime, catch up on an entire back catalog of some really, really important questions, especially around like some real sales-focused strategies around like calls to action and things like that.

So thepodcastnewsroom.com is the place to be for the news you need for a more profitable podcast. Let's dig in to these four things because I want to spend a little time with each if we can. The first and foremost thing that podcasters and business owners who are using their podcast to get results are actually seeing results in their business from their podcast is they're obsessed with their audience.

I think it's easy to get stuck in the gazillion pieces of building your brand and get sort of pulled from the core that matters most, which is the people who you serve and the work you do for or with them. If you're not kind of obsessed with your audience, it gets really hard to get in their head. And so this isn't about knowing your ICA or knowing your niche.

This isn't about the age rank and serial number sort of ideal client avatars, business owners were selling people 10 years ago. Honestly, they might still be. I'm just not, I don't want, I'm not swimming in that particular content pool anymore, but it's not about sort of where do they shop and how many kids do they have and who pays the bills in their house.

It's more than that. It's about understanding their journey, the journey of their experience, not just what's going to get them to buy although certainly that buyer psychology and those sales triggers are incredibly important, but knowing their feelings about where they are now and where they want to go. Understanding the experience of moving through, being unsure, and the questions that come up as you are figuring out your problem, frankly.

And then as you start to look on how to solve your problem, what does that experience look like? What do they do? Who are they asking? What kind of questions are coming up for them? And frankly, this is why I will never give up sales calls. And this is why when I see people working really, really diligently to remove the need for sales calls from their business, I know their content is going to get worse because this information, this audience obsession stuff, it's data that comes from sales conversations, the ones that convert, and frankly, the ones that don't. If you want to know more about where they are as they're making this decision, look at your sales calls.

This is one of the reasons I record my sales calls. I use a tool called Fathom as a note taker for all of my calls because it helps me be able to go in. Frankly, it helps me stay more present in the call because I don't have to worry about tracking down everything I'm afraid I'm going to forget.

I can then go into Fathom. I can listen to the recording. I can review the transcript.

I can see the action items created. I can do that all really quickly. I do that with sales calls too.

Sometimes right after the sales calls, I will go in and I will review the transcript and I'll be looking at the questions and I'll make note of things. But more importantly, a couple times a year, I sit down and I look at all my sales calls from the last quarter or the last six months and I say, what are the common themes? And that's part of how I'm building my content plan. This does not mean having to cyber stock every person who follows you on Instagram.

That'd be creepy. What it does mean is when you're in conversation with them, be meaningfully listening to them. Yes, in the way that answers their questions and moves them through a sales process.

Absolutely. I mean, you should be listening on sales calls above, above, just in general. But listening for those recurring themes because that is your content.

That is your messaging. That gives you the ability to be crystal clear on who you're talking to and where they're at and what's possible for them on the other side of your work because you've been in conversation with them. And that obsession, honestly, is clear in your content when it's there because that's when you get the DMs.

That's when you get people showing up on sales calls saying you are in my head. I got an email the morning I'm recording this. I got an email from somebody from a podcast that just released that was straight up.

You are in my head. I said these words to my coach a couple of weeks ago. It's time that we do this.

And now we're moving forward, looking at the best option for them. And I have zero doubt that they're going to end up in a container with me over the next couple of months, probably in intensive, frankly. But without a doubt, because I can say the things to them that they're saying to the people in their lives or sometimes only inside their head because I've had other people say them to me on sales calls because I've had other people give me insights on where they are when they're ready to buy from me.

So be obsessed with your audience. Number two, and you're gonna be like just super, prepare your shock face. You're gonna be so surprised when I say this.

They are strategically planning their content. And I know that because I can see that in their episodes. There is a consistency.

They are tying thoughts together. They are moving through a process. Episodes are built to fill a role.

They're building trust. They're qualifying leads. They're nurturing them into a conversion.

They're moving them through a decision-making process. And more importantly, I can tell when you're not doing this because your show is filled with episodes that are, what do they want to hear right now? What do I want to talk about this week? It is evident when your content is built to move someone through a decision because these pieces fit together. If you look at the last, I don't know, four to six weeks of content on this podcast, you will have seen me move through a pretty specific pattern of content because we were moving through a launch for Summer Camp.

There's a really understandable theming. And now as we move out of that, you're not gonna suddenly see me just sort of talking about whatever. No.

Now we're building content that speaks to people who are like maybe interested in Summer Camp but it wasn't an exact right fit. They wanted the outcome but not the container. Guess what that is? It's a podcast strategy intensive.

Guess what offer this episode is built to sell? That's right, my love. You have a call to action. So join me for a podcast strategy intensive coming your way as we finish.

Because it makes sense as a next offer for folks who were interested in the outcomes of Summer Camp but don't want a group program, who don't want to do it over eight weeks, who want more direct one-to-one access to me. That's what we're talking about when we're talking about strategic episode planning. Episodes complement each other.

They're built to do jobs, to fill roles, to execute different stages of the buyer journey and connect intentionally with different parts of your business. They build off each other. Part number three or item number three.

They have offer aligned content and this ties hand in hand with that strategic episode planning. This ties hand in hand with what I was just talking about where we got talked about Summer Camp for a while and now we're talking about another route to that same outcome for those who were gonna know for Summer Camp but a yes for the outcome. When we move through these next couple of weeks, you're gonna see me talking about other ways to work with me that make sense for where we are in the year and where my capacity and our team's capacity is for work.

We're gonna be talking about the podcast launch accelerator because we're gonna have spots opened up in Q3. We're gonna be talking about production because we'll be taking on a couple more production clients before the end of the year and I can tie our offers into our content because they are strategically tied together and when I'm listening to the shows of people who are generating real business from their podcast, every single episode is tied to an offer and not just from a content perspective but from a call to action perspective. There is a clear next step, not a hey you might like but an intentional invitation to take the next step to move forward with what's going to work and that comes down to planning.

When we sit down with our production clients this month, I'm asking each and every one of them, what are we selling? What's going on in Q3 that we need to make space for? And when we start with that, we can't help but build content that leads to it and this is why having an understanding of what you're selling and when you're selling it and how you're selling it and who you're selling it to has to be the first step. No content of any form, of any volume, of any quality will be valuable to your sales and business goals if it's not tied to your offer, if it is not connecting the listener with the opportunity and again this is not about soft playing passive aggressive CTAs with like this might help. No, it's about saying here's our logical next step and that comes from planning.

That comes from having systems and support that allows you to show up for that kind of machine and that's the last piece we're going to talk about. When I look at shows that are doing well, the people who I talk to, they have support. That support doesn't always look like a full service production agency.

It might look like a podcast VA it might look like regular planning sessions with a content strategist. We have a couple of clients who do this. They've got two intensives with me a year and we in those intensives, we plan six months of content.

We audit the show from the past six months. We plan the next six months of content and we meet twice a year because they have support or they enjoy DIYing their show. It varies depending on client but they don't need the whole uncommonly more production bubble.

They just need the call with me and so that's what we do and they plan those sessions and the subsequent batching intentionally in their schedule. We meet in their lulls, sort of when they're slowest and they sit down and we, again, we audit and we plan and then they go to work. They batch that content.

They repurpose. We've built repeatable series for them so they know these landmarks are gonna be here. They're in building episodes intentionally.

This is not about working harder. This is not about doing more or investing more. It's about building efficiency into your system.

It's about protecting your energy so this thing does not burn you out because, frankly, when this thing works, you're gonna be working harder. You're gonna be seeing more clients because when it works, your client list gets full and this is why the system is so important because often what I see happen is people plug and play parts of this and so their show will start to really work and they'll start generating sales and then they're so stuck in delivery that they can't keep up their podcast and then their sales fall off and so they kind of go back to the well and this is how we end up in that up and down, that rollercoaster of sales, that on again, off again, of having the capacity to show up. This is why we do things like build repeatable series.

This is why we do things like batch. This is why we do things like plan our content around the seasons. As I sit down in Q3 with clients, we're looking at places where we can buy them extra time because they're on sabbatical, they're revamping content, they're doing six, seven things, getting themselves ready for big Q4 sales pushes or we've got some clients who are speakers and we know they are going to be traveling a ton in the spring and in the fall because that's when they sort of have peak conference season and peak speaking season, for lack of a better way to put it, a more elegant way to put it and so we intentionally plan so that they can batch before, so that we can repurpose when needed to buy them space.

That comes from having systems and support. So here is what you can steal from this. Here's what I want you to steal from this.

I want you to be looking at your sales first. What are we selling? Who are we selling it to? How are we selling it to them? Now, what are the questions that come up for somebody as they're making a buying decision for that offer? That's your content. Start mapping out your content to speak to buyer readiness, to speak to the questions they have as they are making decisions.

Step back from trying to prove to them that you're so smart and you're the only option in town. Instead, speak to where they are now and show them what's possible after because that's going to move them into making a decision. And the last piece, start setting up a system that helps you get this show done in a way that supports you and not burns you out.

That could mean getting support. That could mean systemizing. That could be batching.

That could mean changing some scheduling stuff. That could mean seasons instead of an evergreen show like a weekly show. It could mean a lot of things.

And here's the best part is I can help you make these decisions. I can help you figure out which of these things you want to steal first. And we do that inside a podcast strategy intensive because what we're going to do in an intensive is we're going to sit down and we're going to see where your show is now.

We're going to talk about where you want your show to go. And then we're going to plan a road to get there. At least those first steps.

Because we're going to sit down and we're going to plan that next three, four months of content right there in that call. I want you to head on over to uncommonlymore.com intensive and I want you to reserve a podcast strategy intensive for you and I over the next couple of months because this is the first step into building some of this stuff into your own show and into your own business. If in having this conversation you're realizing that your podcast doesn't really have a plan, doesn't really have a system, or maybe you thought you had them but those things aren't delivering the way you'd want them to, then it's time.

Uncommonlymore.com intensive to book your next intensive. And if you need to have a conversation with me, if you're not sure if this is the right approach, the right option for you, there's also an option to book a free call with me on that very same page. So either grab your spot, book your calendar spot and let's get you on the intensive or book a call with me and we can find the next best option for you.

The next best step for you. Because these shows that are getting results, they're not guessing. They're not riding on vibes.

They're intentional. They're moving forward with a plan and with support. And so let's get you some support too.

All right? Uncommonlymore.com intensive to get that booked and I will see you right back here next week. Thanks so much for listening to the show. Remember that content consumption does not make changes.

So commit to doing something from today's episode. Maybe it's taking action on what we talked about. Maybe it's reaching out to me and learning more about podcast strategy intensives or what podcast production looks like with our team.

All of that is over at uncommonlymore.com. And if you haven't yet signed up for the podcast newsroom, I wanna remind you, that is a great next step. If you're not really sure what comes next, hang out over there, get those exclusive private episodes. That's over at podcastnewsroom.com. And the last favor I will ask because social proof is endlessly important for sure is to leave a rating or review for the show.

If you go to ratethispodcast.com slash more, that's the easiest way to do it. But I would love to hear what you thought of the show, what you think of the show and if the show has been helpful for you. I can't wait to chat with you.

So this is just the start of the conversation. Reach out so we can keep it going. Talk soon.