128: Boost Downloads and Sales: The Power of Solo Episodes

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If you are not publishing solo episodes of your podcast, I think you're missing out. Some of the biggest podcasters in the world are saving tons of time, saving money, and blowing up their podcasts through the power of solo episodes. This is Grow the Show, the podcast to grow your podcast. My name is Kevin Schmidtlin, and I was put on this earth to make it easier for you to grow your podcast and convert more of your listeners to buyers of whatever it is that your business sells. In this episode, my goal is to do two things. Number one, my goal is to help you understand the power of solo episodes and how they can grow your audience and make you more money. And number two, I want to give you a step-by-step framework on how to make solo episodes that crush and how to do that in only about 30 to 60 minutes. So, does that sound good? All right, let's go. Before I map out exactly how to do this, I want to tell you a quick story. It was back in the winter of 2021. I was about two years into doing Grow the Show and I found myself in a pickle. Back then, the Grow the Show podcast published really heavily produced guest episodes every other week. But there were a few exceptions to that. Every once in a while, I would publish a solo episode. And I only ever did that in a case where I was behind on production and in an emergency, I just quickly needed an episode to publish. I didn't have time to interview somebody or edit it. So I would just quickly record a solo episode and put it out. So it was basically a patch for any time. I messed up my publishing flow to where I was in danger of not publishing on time. And keep in mind, at that point, I only published once every two weeks. That's how, infrequently, I published and how much energy I was putting into each Grow the Show episode at that point in time. It was really a lot. They were heavily produced. So I had just published some solo episodes and I fired up my Apple Podcast dashboard to look at my retention metrics and I was actually really surprised at what I saw. Now, at that point, I wasn't checking my retention as often as I now believe I should be. And so for a few months, I never looked at it. And what I did notice was that overall my podcast episode retention rate or completion rate was about between 60 to 70%. And while that's not horrible, that's also not that good. And that was a huge surprise because my team and I were spending so much time editing every single episode. Like we were spending so much time on the episodes, I was like, what the heck? I'm spending so much of my time and money and paying team members to do this. And yet people are only listening to like, you know, a little over half. That's a huge problem. And that really needs to change. But while I looked at this while I saw this, there were a couple episodes that had 95% plus retention, which is off the charts. And there was even one that had over 100% retention, which means that people on average were listening to the episode more than once. That's insane. And so I thought, oh man, that must just be because those episodes are shorter episodes. Now, I noticed that the ones that had really high retention were indeed solo episodes, but they were also the shortest episodes that I was publishing. My guest episodes were between 40 and 60 minutes. My solo episodes were between five and 20 minutes. So my first conclusion was, okay, so it must have high retention because, you know, those episodes are shorter and people listen while they're doing something. And so probably that they're turning off the guest episodes because, you know, they get to work or whatever. They only have 20 minutes to listen to an episode, right? Well, what I've learned in my five plus years of entrepreneurship is that I should never trust my first conclusion. It's almost always wrong and based on feelings. And I should always try to find some data to validate whatever my conclusion is. So I said, okay, I need some data. I have the data that my solo episodes get 90% plus my guest episodes get 60 to 70% plus. So I asked my audience, I jumped into my community and I said, hey, everybody, I noticed that retention is really low on guest episodes and it's high on solo episodes. Why do you think that is? And I got a response immediately and across the board, people are saying, oh, yeah, we love the solo episodes. They have way more information. They're way more valuable. I listened to them multiple times. The guest episodes, and here's what got me there, like the guest episodes, I usually skip the first 50% and then maybe sample the second half to see if there's any tips, but I don't listen to a whole thing. And I said, huh, so the episodes that take me 60 minutes max to make are providing the most value to my audience and are the ones that people are actually listening to. And the episodes that I am spending hours of my own time and paying other people hours to spend their time on, people are not listening to. Something's got a change here. So then I said, okay, I could use some more data. I went into my CRM to check my UTM tracking. UTM tracking allows you to understand which podcast episodes actually send people into your sales funnel. And so I had that set up and I said, all right, let me look to see which podcast episodes were actually bringing me the most leads and clients to my program. And which episodes do you think that people listened to the most right before applying to the Grow the Show accelerator? You guessed it. So the episodes, I said, huh, all right, now we should probably give the people what they want. So in 2022, I said, the people want so episodes. And I actually in retrospect, I think I took it a little too far because in 2022, I like maxed out how little time I could spend on episodes and I almost exclusively published so episodes. And while they gave tons of value, people did notice the drop in quality from the show because number one, I was rushing to just like, how quickly can I put this stuff out there? And number two, there is value to guest episodes. So I'm not against guest episodes. So like I said, 2022, I took things a little too far in the other direction. But I was able to get great value from publishing soul episodes fast forward to the summer 2022. I had a conversation with John Lee Dumas and I asked him, Hey, if you were starting a podcast today, what would you do? And he was like, I would do exclusively soul episodes. I said, huh, fast forward to a couple weeks ago, I was preparing to interview Amy Porterfield on the show, which was an awesome episode. It was released last week, getting so much great feedback. Thank you all for the feedback. But as I was researching her, I looked back and I was listening to episodes of her podcast online marketing made easy that she published in like 2016 and they were great solo episodes. Okay, so this isn't a new thing. This is something that some of the best podcasters in the game have been doing for a long time. With that, I have now so much evidence that I feel very confident in saying that solo episodes are something that every single podcaster should consider putting into their repertoire. And another thing that John Lee Dumas told me when I spoke to him was that podcast episodes that are just guest interviews every single week are pretty played out. It is the default. Everybody who launches a podcast just does that 45 minute interview. What's also true is that interviewing is a skill and a lot of people, a lot of podcasters who have interview shows have not developed that skill. They don't know how to operate a good interview yet. And that's okay. But that is leading to a show that is not of high quality. It is average and podcast listeners are not going to listen to a show that is average. They just have too many stellar options. Why on earth would they ever listen to a show that's average? Having said that little sidebar, solo episodes are in my opinion one of the best ways to quickly create quality content that listeners love and that brings you more sales to your business. Now, I know there's a good chance that you might already be publishing solo episodes. So if that is you keep listening because through coaching over 400 plus podcasters directly within my programs in the past three years, I have seen solo episodes done wrong or wrong if your goal is to keep listeners attention and get you clients and customers. So the question is how can you add solo episodes into your publishing flow potentially double your downloads massively increasing amount of leads and sales that you get from your show and most importantly, make these efficient solo episodes in a way that is both efficient, that saves you time, but is also effective that are great episodes that your listeners love. Well, let's talk about it. So the first thing I want to mention is a framework that Alex Hermosey recently distinguished and his new book 100 million dollar leads. He's got a whole chapter on creating great content. Highly recommend that you pick it up and the framework that he puts forth on how to create content short form long form medium form whatever that people love is hook retain reward. You hook the listener, you'd have something to grab their attention and stop them from consuming something else, right? You grab them by the lapels, get them to pay attention what you have to say, you retain. So through the content itself, you keep the listeners attention, you don't waste a second of their time and you keep them listening and then finally you reward them make it so that the payoff is good. You close the loops that you opened within the content and you over deliver on the promise that your hook made that piece is often missed by a lot of podcasters and content creators where there is no reward. There's no payoff, right? With set of mind and again, if you want more details on that framework, you know, let me know I could always create a solo episode that goes deeper into hook retain reward, but basically here's the structure that I recommend for solo episodes that fits into hook retain reward. I'm going to break it down a little bit further. This episode of Grow the Show is presented by Factor. It is fall, which means everybody's back from vacation and we've all got jam packed days and nights as we push towards our business goals. 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Head to factormeals.com slash grow50 and use code grow50 to get 50% off. That's code grow50 at factormeals.com slash grow50 to get 50% off. So the first thing you want to have in your solo episode is a hook. The hook is going to be a controversial or strong statement that gets people locked into what you're about to say. So you can either make a statement or you can hose a question that hooks them emotionally or you can compile to something that they want. So what I'm going to do here is give you three examples and so let's say I'm making a solo episode about creating a great podcast intro and how important it is to have a great intro to your podcast. This is super meta. Hopefully this isn't confusing. But basically the hook if I did a controversial or strong statement my hook would be right at the beginning of the episode. There are several things that podcasters do wrong with their show. But today I'm going to share with you the one biggest mistake that podcasters make that kills their podcast. Okay, so that's a hook that's a controversial or strong statement, right? It's a strong statement. I'm saying this is the biggest mistake that people make that it's killing your podcast. You don't know that I'm about to talk about intros but it gets your attention. If I were to pose a question to get your attention for a solo episode about intros, I would say, are you tired of publishing podcast episodes into the void each and every week? Have you considered giving up on your podcast all together? Well, don't give up because today I'm going to give you a 30 second fix that's going to make it so your podcast grows much more easily. Now again, I've hooked you in. I've asked a question that ties into an emotion that you have, right? You're emotional because your podcast isn't growing and then I propose a solution and now you're like, okay, great. What do you have? What is it? And I'm about to say, you know, it's having a better intro or this one has a little bit less teeth, but you can use a hook that compels to something that they want. So you could say, have you ever wondered what it feels like to have your podcast download numbers increasing every single week, breaking records with every single episode? Right? So that's compelling. You're like, yeah, I have wondered. That sounds great. Tell me more, right? So those are three examples of hooks. So with this whole episode, I say, start with the hook, then quickly introduce the show yourself and why they should listen to you. Right? So I'll say, this is Grow the Show, the podcast to help you grow your podcast. My name is Kevin Schmidland. I am a seven figure podcaster. I've had over 400 podcast growth clients. My business has done over 2.5 million in three years. And so I'm qualified to speak to what I'm about to talk to. Right? So you introduce yourself quickly, introduce the mission of the show and why people should listen to you sidebar. You have to say that if you have imposter syndrome issues, we've got to get past that because you need to tell people why they should listen to you confidently or else they're not going to listen to sidebar over. Then I recommend that you make a promise, right? So make a promise that this episode will keep share with them what they are going to get out of this episode. So again, an episode about intros, I will say in this episode, I'm going to share with you a 30 to 60 second hack that is going to make it easier for you to grow your podcast. In fact, by applying this hack, the tactics that you're currently using to grow your show will work better. Let's dive in. Right? So I just made a promise that's super compelling. And then the episode is going to map out exactly how to create an compelling intro that intro is going to raise your attention rates. You can get more people to listen to your whole episode. And so it will keep that promise, right? There will be a massive payout. After you make the promise, though, here is the key. And this is the piece that I think will be most helpful for you as you create your solo episodes because it's going to make them more memorable and it's going to make the things that you teach in your solo episodes more effective. And that is before you give the information, before you share the lesson, the framework, whatever it is that you're teaching, tell a story that illustrates that framework or lesson in action or even better, illustrates somebody learning that lesson. So before giving the answer away or the framework, tell a story that illustrates the lesson of the point you're making. This step is so important and here's why people will not remember what you have to say if you simply give them information. What I have found is that people remember information when you link the information you're trying to teach them to a story or an analogy. And the more emotion that is attached to that story, the more your audience will remember the lesson. Again, that's just my experience. And case in point, I started this episode telling you the story of how I learned the power of solo episodes, right? So while I'm giving you the framework right now, if I just opened the episode and said, Hey, so episodes are great. They're going to help you grow your show. And here's how to do it. You'd be like, Oh, great. That's cool. That's really great information. But you really would remember anything about this. You would remember that there is a framework, but you won't remember necessarily what the framework is or it just won't stick with you as powerfully why this is worth doing. So that is why I started this solo episode telling you the story of how I learned it and what where I was before, how I learned the lesson and what happened after, right? I said, I went back and said, Oh my gosh, I'm getting more sales from my solo episodes. Boom, outcome. You're going to remember that piece more than you're going to remember what I'm saying right now, which is the framework. So when you tell that story, it can be about yourself. It can be like the subject of the story. It can be yourself. It can be a client you have. It can be a friend. It can be a mentor that you have. It can even be a public figure, right? It could be somebody that you don't know. It could be a story that you heard somebody else tell. It could be a legend. It could be something from a religious text, whatever it might be. If you tell a story of a person getting the lesson that you are here to teach, people will remember it better. And ideally, the story should reveal the lesson. So you don't want to give away the punchline and say, I'm going to tell you a story about how I learned that solo episodes give you more sales, right? No, not necessarily. What I'll say is I'm about to tell you a story about how I learned the power of solo episodes. You're like, Oh, what is the power, right? And then you tell the story and they're like, Oh, my gosh, okay. How do I do that? Right? Just imagine a whole audience is story time at kindergarten. Everybody's, you know, sitting on the floor just wrapped attention to you. And if you think about your audience in that way, even though they're all smart adults who are super busy, it'll land better. It'll work. They'll be just as enthralled as the, you know, the cute kindergartners who want to hear the story. All right. So you share a story and then you share the lesson, whatever the thesis or lesson or insight or framework is that you are about to teach in the solo episode, share the lesson, walk through it after telling the story. A pro tip, I didn't do this in this episode, but it's really, really beneficial. I don't know why, but we humans, we love numbers like we love to know there's four steps or we love to know here's five ways to make more money. I have no idea why that's, that's a thing, but some psychology trick humans love those types of things. So as I said, I didn't do it in this episode, but a great way to get more attention to your solo episode is to share a number. So for example, I had a solo episode a while ago that is here are the eight reasons why somebody will actually listen to your call to action and do what you say when you ask your listeners to do something on your podcast is a very popular episode. I heard from tons of people that they got value from it. A lot of it came from the fact that I had structured the information and here are eight ways. So that's a pro tip when you share the lesson, definitely if there is a number involved, the four steps, the three steps, the eight ways, the 99 reasons, you know, whatever, 99 problems, share the number. And when you go through the lesson that you're teaching, it doesn't always have to be a framework, but people do love step by step frameworks. So the more you can take something and break it down into discrete steps and ideally three to four steps, the more people will receive the framework and we will be able to implement it. And then finally, I think it is beneficial to explain why you believe the framework or lesson is true. You can explain this while explaining the framework if you want. Usually after the framework, I have extra thoughts to share about why I think it works. So for example, for this solo episode about solo episodes, I'll tell you that the reason why I think solo episodes are so powerful is number one, because the listener is there for you, the host. That's number one. They listen to you. They listen for you. The best analogy that I like for that is think about late night, you know, talk shows. There's four or five late night talk show hosts. And by the way, they recently all, all five of them created a podcast together, which is hilarious. Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers, and I think there's one more, which is great. A five host podcast all with the late night hosts, hilarious. However, those five shows are all pretty much the same. And people tune in not for the guests, but for the hosts, right? People aren't like, oh, I'm going to watch Jimmy Fallon tonight, because it's the rock. I'm going to watch Jimmy Kimmel tomorrow because it's so-and-so. They generally tune into the one that they like. They tune in because they like the host. The same thing is true with your podcast. And so, you know, when you publish solo episodes, people are listening to the show for you and they love hearing from you. They love hearing your stories, your lessons, what you think. That's why they're tuning in to your show every single week. Sure, the guests are great, but really what they love is you. In addition to that, another reason why I think solo episodes work so well is because they are such explicit value. And so I believe that when it comes to podcasts, there are two types of value. There's explicit value and implicit value. Explicit value is something like this where I'm like, in this episode, I'm going to tell you exactly how to make solo episodes that are awesome. It's explicit. I'm like, here's what you want, here's what you need. Here's why it works. Here's how to do it. Bo. And you with the listener, you're like, this is awesome. This is like a course. I can't believe this is free. Amazing. I'm going to go implement this right away. Implicit value, on the other hand, I believe is where the value that comes from the conversation is implied. So all these huge podcasts where billionaires interview other billionaires, it is implied that if you listen to these two billionaires, have a conversation because they're so smart, you will be able to be like them and make more money or be more successful. That is implicit value. Or it might be a talk show where it's like these too funny people are having a conversation. And so it's implied that when this comedian interviews this other comedian, it's going to be funny. Right? It's an implication. But those are like fly on the wall conversations where you really don't know exactly what you're going to get out of it. So it's implied. You're like, I think there's going to be value here, but it's definitely not going to be 100% of the time. It'll just be as they have this conversation. There'll be a couple of nuggets that I find valuable. And that's fine. But the reason why I believe podcast listeners love solo episodes so much is because you don't have to sift through a conversation. You don't have to sift through potential digressions of that conversation that are not valuable or interesting to you. And you don't have to figure out what the value is for yourself. So compare and interview where I have a podcast on this show where they tell me what they did. And then you listen to what they do. And you have to figure out, oh, that's really interesting. I should do that. But how would that work for me? Would that work for my audience? How could I put that into my process each and every week? And what about this? How do I do that step? Right? So it's implied. Like it's flying the wall second hand value. Whereas this solo episode, I'm just like, yo, here's what to do. Here's how it's going to work. Totally explicit. You don't even have to think. So that's why I think the solo episodes work really well. And then finally, the reason why I think they bring so many more sales than a guest episode is because the solo episode is the closest analogy to your coaching, your course, you know, if you sell some sort of service or info product, you really can't get much closer to a just straight up free trial than listening to this. So right now, this is a preview of what you would get if you worked with me, right? If you were in my course, if you got access to my 95 plus training modules, they are like this. They are more step by step. There's visual components, right? So it's a little bit more prescriptive than my solo episodes. But this is about the closest thing that you're going to get to a totally completely free preview of what it would be like to work with me. So for that reason, if you get value out of this, you have a really good idea of what my coaching might be like. You have a great idea of what my course might be like of what my community might be like. And so you're like, oh, this is great. I want to work with this guy. Compared to hearing me interview somebody else, again, interviewing is a different skill. So if you hear me interview Amy Porterfield about how she does things, that doesn't really help you understand how I do things or what my program would be like or how I teach or how I coach. But this gives you a pretty direct sample of that. So that's why I believe that solo episodes drive so many sales to an online info or service business. And so if you are a business owner, that is why I believe that solo episodes are going to bring you more sales than guest episodes. Because again, you're given it to him straight. You're giving them a preview. You're sharing your knowledge and your expertise. And nothing is going to get them to trust you more and believe that your paid products will be actually worth the money. Then giving them a free sample like this. So in summary, the four step framework that I recommend for a solo episode is hook story, lesson, and then step four is summary, which is I'm doing right now. I'm summarizing what you just heard. Number one, have a hook that grabs the listener in. It either makes a controversial or strong statement. You pose a question that hooks them emotionally or you compel to something that they want in the hook. By the way, in the hook, you also introduce yourself, introduce the show, and make a promise that the episode will keep. Then you move on to the story section where you tell a story that implements the lesson you're about to teach. That is key. You don't want to skip that. Then you move into the lesson where you actually teach what it is that you're teaching, what it is you want your audience to learn, ideally with a number of steps. You explain in that area why you believe it works and the theory behind that lesson, that'll help people believe you that it actually works. Then finally, you summarize what you just taught because right now, we're 20 to 25 minutes in and I want you to have this summary so that everything's in one place. Again, hook story, lesson summary, hook story, lesson summary. The last question is, how do you actually come up with ideas? I'm going to leave you with one final thought because I know, and by the way, pro tip, leave them with a final thought. It's sometimes a quote that can be memorable to close things out or maybe a pro tip and so I'm going to leave you with a pro tip. The next question that somebody's going to have is, this sounds great. I know how to structure my episodes, but what the heck do I make episodes about? For this one, once again, I'm borrowing from Alex Ramose's new book, $100 million leads where he lists out how he comes up with this information. I used to have a pretty hodgepodge process for how I would ideate my solo episodes. They just kind of came up here and there. What's really important is that once you start creating solo episodes regularly, you will start to begin to have ideas for solo episodes on a regular basis. You want to have a process so that you can capture those ideas when they happen. My biggest recommendation is just use Apple notes, or if you have Android, I'm sure there's a notes app. Use a notes app, a pinned note that you just constantly, as you have ideas, whether you're at the gym, whether you're working, whether you're on the beach, whatever, when you have ideas for solo episodes, collect them all in one place, and then when the time comes to make one, you just look at that list of ideas and you pick the one that jumps out to you right then and there. That is number one. Make sure you're capturing ideas when you have them. The alternative is to never capture them when they have them. You have that idea and you're like, oh, yeah, that's great. I'll remember that. But then later, when you sit down to record a solo episode, you can't remember any of the great ideas that you had. You're like, oh my god, I had such good ones. I can't remember them. You don't want that to happen. What you do instead is make sure you're constantly capturing ideas so that when you do sit down to record a solo episode, you've got this huge list and you can just pick one that jumps out to you. The other piece that, and this is what I'm borrowing for $100,000,000 leaves, which is brilliant. Alex Ramosi shared his process for identifying content topics. Basically, what he does is at the end of every week, he looks back at his calendar and he reviews everything that he did over the past week. Those are going to be client calls. Those are going to be calls with your team. They're going to be date nights out, whatever, everything you did that week. For each thing that you did, there's a story. There's a lesson. There's a question that a client asked you that you were able to help them with. And so you go through each of those things. And I'm telling you, since I've been doing it for two weeks now, since the book came out and holy crap, at the end of every week, I wind up with like 15 ideas for great solo episode topics and content topics. So it is an unbelievable, really systemized way to collect ideas because here's the thing. The content that you're sharing on your podcast is all stories that you have either lived or come across. Questions that you've answered, experiences that you've had, that's what we're making content about. So if you go back and review all the podcast episodes that you listen to, the YouTube videos that you watched, the people that you talked with, the chance encounters that you had, you review each and every day. And by the way, you can also do this at the end of the day if it's easier to remember than just doing it once a week. I like to do it once a week. Then you will have no shortage of solo episode ideas. Collect them, put them in that note. And then when the time comes to record, you pick one idea and then you say, okay, what is my hook? What is the story to tell? What is the lesson or the insight to share? And that's all you need. You just summarize all that at the end. So that is going to do it for this episode of Grow the Show. My hope is that you now, number one, believe me when I say that solo episodes are going to be totally worth it. They're going to bring you more sales to your business. And I hope that you, if you already created some episodes that you now know how to make them better that keeps listeners attention. And if you don't, that you start because my goodness, it is a super, super efficient way to add more. And that's the other thing that I forgot to mention is that guest episodes take several hours of time to research who to invite, send the invitation, deal with scheduling, reschedule inevitably when one of you can't make it that day. Reschedule it again. It takes up time in your calendar. You do the interview. You take it back. You have to edit it. You have to figure out, okay, what's the intro to this? It's just so much work. So episodes, you make the hook. You tell the story. You share the lesson. You move on. And so I made this episode in about 45 minutes. I outlined it. I recorded it done and done. And now it is in your ears. And also it's quick. I'm recording this on Friday, September 8th. You're listening to this at the earliest on Tuesday, September 12th. Pretty freaking efficient. So that is going to do it for today. I hope this is valuable. If you have any questions, please, please, please shoot me a DM on Twitter or Instagram. I would love to answer. And if you're not there, shoot me a follow. If you found this valuable, please leave a review on Apple PCaster Spotify right here. And now it is helpful. And let me know which particular episode you got the most value from that's going to do it for the show. My name is Kevin Schmidland. And I will see you in next week's episode.