160 | Amplifying the Reach of Your Podcast Using the EARS Framework, with Jeremy Enns

So I'll be the first to admit. There are a lot of us podcasting gurus out here And whenever you find yourself in the podcasting corner of social media You probably see a few new ones pop up. That might even be how you found me The thing is it can be hard to tell whether that person is truly an expert who has either Grown their own show to impressive heights or they've worked directly on other shows that have been successful You really can't know until you get past their social media posts Get into their long form content so their podcast or their YouTube or their newsletter and dig into what it is that they actually teach Now most podcast experts that I come across are simply experts in launching shows and Publishing consistently. They're not experts in growth and they haven't really actually generated big results And I'm not handing on them. They mean well, but they don't have as much of a track record But when I do come across a podcast expert who knows what they're talking about I think it's my duty to bring them here so they can share their knowledge with you This is Grow the Show the podcast to help you grow your podcast my name is Kevin Schmidland I am your podcast growth coach my first podcast reached a hundred thousand downloads and a hundred thousand dollars monetized in 18 months And this podcast has reached over 50,000 listeners and has driven over 2.5 million in revenue for my business And I usually don't add all those numbers, but I figured I should after just talking about people who may or may not be podcast experts Now, I'm not the most successful podcaster ever by any means, but I am confident in calling myself an expert because of what I've achieved and What my clients have achieved and today I'm excited to share with you a another true Podcasting expert his name is Jeremy ends Jeremy is an expert in podcast marketing and he's the creator of the podcast marketing academy where he helps Specifically business owners improve and expand their podcasts and he too has generated amazing results I have been following Jeremy for a long time and he and I have gotten together to talk shop quite a bit and trust me He knows what he's talking about and he's also got an incredible newsletter that shares really good stuff every week So I invited him on the show to share his framework for how to grow and monetize a podcast now my framework is called the podcast ladder and I recently outlined it in the 12 days of podcast growth a daily Podcasting series that I did in December so mine's called the podcast ladder Jeremy's framework is called ears EARS and he's going to share it with you today in this episode you can look forward to learning three main things And they're going to sound familiar number one It's going to be the importance of having a unique concept or premise from your podcast number two Jeremy's going to outline strategies for promoting your show and engaging with your audience to grow the show and Number three, he's going to dive into how you can convert your listeners into paying Customers. Hopefully that sounds familiar Jeremy's also going to share a surprising insight on why the last few minutes of your podcast might be the key to Listen to retention that you never knew about and I certainly was surprised to hear it So if you're ready to grow your podcast audience create more engaging content and ultimately Increase your revenue stick around to this episode of grow the show Jeremy ends welcome to grow the show so excited finally to have you on here man Want to thank you for joining welcome aboard. I would love for you to kick us off by can I give me a little bit of Background on how the heck you got involved in this weird world that we call podcasting first of all Thanks so much for having me on it's been good to hang out at the past couple of podcast movements and in real life I now to do this on the show always fun to nerd out podcast marketing and growth stuff But yeah, I came into podcasting through the technical side So I went to audio engineering at production school and wanted to work in the music industry and Did about a year have been turning a couple days a week at a big recording studio in Vancouver where I'm originally from Realized pretty quickly took a year, but I think it was clear to me earlier on that like this was not really the career path I wanted if I was to go back now I was thinking I'd be able to get a job at a studio and have some kind of more traditional career structure And it's super entrepreneurial, but it's in a very kind of like Industry that doesn't have a lot of money. So it's a tough market to work in and so at the time I felt really bad like opting out of that I'd put all this time and money and and schooling into doing this thing and I always love music I played in bands all the stuff and then like leading that and seeing a lot of my friends who were like still in the industry kind of grinding away I felt not like a sellout because I wasn't like I was making a ton more money But I was just like I guess I wasn't cut out for this But I kind of like found my way into podcasting over the next couple of years first through as a listener And the first shows I looked up were like I'd done traveling for a year and kind of came back was like And how do I do that all the time? So I just like saved up took a year off when traveling came back and is like How do you like start your own business or what is this about and this was like 2015 2014 something like that And I'd heard about podcasts, but never listened and so I decided to like to go into iTunes at the time There's like you know online business creative business something like that and of course back then there was already Tons of shows Pat Flynn was up and running. There's a bunch of others Yeah, and just like started I worked it was working a job by just landscaping where I could listen to podcasts all day every day So I probably listened to like 50 to 60 hours a week of podcasts like 2x speed wow and just like so much content over the course of about a year And about halfway through I kind of made the connection at first I was building actually a photography business and then I realized like I was doing the whole audience grow It was going to make courses on photography all the stuff and at some point I realized oh I'm an audio engineer It's way easier to start a service business. I have the skill people need it I am now like an expert at podcasting via listening yeah podcast production is So incredibly easy if you have produced you know big music sessions with like literally hundreds of tracks of audio and like Done sound design and all that kind of stuff So just oh this is easy for me There's people who needed this kind of industry is taking off and so it was like pretty immediate that I started getting clients and built up an agency over the next few years And then kind of have made my way into the marketing side of things over the past three or four years It's one thing to do audio production, but podcast growth is a totally different game And now you know these days, I would say you're one of the industry leaders in podcast marketing So how did you work your way into that becoming your expertise? Yeah, so I started producing episodes for clients in 2015 I think I got the first clients and built up the agency then and it was around 2018-19 where It seemed like things just got harder We have get clients. We'd help them wash their shows. They'd like do really well. They'd just be growing and then like Shows that started launching and that range just started capping out you know a couple hundred listeners in episode Three four hundred whatever it wasn't there thinking you know they both had their friends and their coaches And all these people say like oh just start a podcast. You'll get you know thousands of listeners You don't it's so easy and like there was a time when that was true And then there was this period where like people were still like saying like oh This will just happen for you it worked for me It'll do you should do a podcast and you're gonna have the same results And so people started doing it and they weren't getting the same results And so then you know as the producer of the show they're asking me like okay What do we need to do to like grow this because like you know if we're investing a couple thousand dollars a month We've got to result in something which is you know where a lot of people are at yeah And so I just started as I'm like a classic creative. I like road poetry It's still do and like in the music industry and like the metal and hardcore scene like super like Marketing's like anathema to the whole ethos of that scene. So I was like yeah kind of anti-marketing But at this point, I mean, I had my own business So I needed to do a little bit of that and then clients are asking me like what do we do? And I'm like oh shit I better like figure this out or we're gonna lose these clients because they're not getting results And so essentially I just started like talking I interviewed all I like 25 or 30 clients had at the time All like my friends that I had some who had like really big shows really successfully Some who were like newer who'd been around for a while and just interviewed a ton of people and at the end came up with this curriculum That was like oh there's some things that like all the successful shows They do all these things and there's things that all the shows that kind of struggle like they're all focusing on these things that the big shows aren't and There's a bit of okay, there's certainly some you started early you got some advantages there And so it kind of had to there were some things that the big shows often didn't realize that they had just got lucky And they were actually not following best practices, but they didn't really need to at that point But it was kind of just a lot of talking to people and Initially I kind of was just gonna my goal is to create a course for my internal clients and not even offer it publicly And just say like here's a perk for working with us and kind of it like the last second before I actually hit record on the videos I was like, yeah, maybe I should position this publicly and it'll just be a benefit to the clients Then got more involved with like sharing all that stuff publicly So I'm curious because I've worked with a few clients who have come to me and they're like I've been podcasting since 2012 2015 and I don't know what it is But my show stopped growing in 2018 right like it stopped being easy You're absolutely right like there was an early movers advantage There was way less competition then also like until I know I feel like at this point at most people have given podcast listening a try Right, so like I feel like 2014 to like maybe 2021 you got this new like the everything was growing But I'm curious your take so it got harder in 2018 Since then like since 2018 Do you think that things have changed at all do you think it's got harder easier different like what should take on that? I think it's diversified a lot in like the types of shows that are out there So I think it still has got harder overall But I think there's also been some like Rise and popularity of different verticals like and maybe that was just part of my bubble was like very Business world focused back then I had a lot of clients that like nutrition and wellness space So there was a lot of that as well But I feel like entertainment style shows I mean cereal really just like blew the doors open on a whole new genre not just true crime even but like yeah And I mean narrative shows existed But I think it really Exploded the popularity of like a whole new category of a type of show almost that has now I mean if we come popular It's also competitive and they're also I would say harder shows to do well Yeah Because I I just think like once you get into the entertainment Side of things I think it really relies on you being in a truly exceptional talent or like have exceptional charisma That not everybody has like you think it like not everybody can be a Hollywood actor or you know Whatever a list musician like when you get into entertainment It's a different game than like teaching something And so I think that's a really hard game to play you can try But I think nobody is guaranteed to be successful there. Yeah, that's such a good distinction Because I hear from a lot of podcasters who are in entertainment and they they think that it'll be an easier Way to make tons of money and it's like talk to anybody who's actually in show business Like it is not easy to make tons of money that way. It's a great distinction Okay, cool. So it sounds like what you're saying is you focus more so on that educational sort of impact-driven content Yeah, you can have a much easier time like frame working that out and saying like I'll hear the pieces But you put these in place you map your information or education onto it and like you can get results Whereas entertainment there's a lot of variables that are just down to the person Yeah, so one of my teammates saw your presentation at podcast movement a few months ago And I forget what I was doing when when you went on but he texted me He was like we have to have Jeremy on the show Talk about what to say. I was so excited to dive into your framework for growing a podcast But before we talk about that is there anything that our listeners should know Before diving into marketing their podcast are there any prerequisites or anything like that? Honestly, I feel like there is a I don't even know what to call it There's like a time prerequisite that I think it's really I think it's impossible to do marketing well until you have Some experience under your belt like you've produced a number of episodes and there's just like Usually I don't I really say to people like I don't really like working with people who are less than a year into their show Because I just feel like you've got so much to like figure out production and all these other things like where I want to start working with people At least this is me personally you can start thinking about marketing and all that stuff beforehand But like sure I feel like it's hard to do anything two of these things well Like learning the production mechanics of producing a show and then thinking about marketing it at the same time It's interesting because a lot of my philosophy on marketing is like yeah It is infused from the ground up your content strategy and like everything the show concept everything like is marketing to some extent But you just need to like get a ton of reps in first to be like okay Yeah, I can produce my show well now or at least do like a decent You know, it's not going to be the best show in the world But it's like I can do this. It's I don't have to really think about it that much now I can really think about like marketing more intentionally and so you can learn about marketing and try to apply it But I don't think most people have success with it until they're like yeah Okay, I like have it on lock how I can make a pretty solid show to begin with Yeah, I agree We don't bring in anybody who hasn't already launched or at least established consistency because yeah You have to have that skill just kind of in flight before we even talk about growing the thing totally agree So that said let's dive into a van our listeners are business owners with shows They're looking to grow the show What would you take them through how can they do that? I came up with this framework that it's essentially this very similar to How you might think about a traditional funnel, but for some reason I was going through it for my own business and kind of content strategy And just came across this different articulation that I ended up calling the ears framework Which kind of works very nicely with podcasting, but it was also kind of came up how I just Naturally articulated it. I didn't even notice that Years we listen. Oh my god amazing. Yeah So essentially it's exposure attraction retention and sales and so those are the four kind of components And so essentially for me like you need to have each of these components in place to be successful with your marketing So if you're missing any one of these if you're like week in any one of these you're probably that's gonna be a bottleneck That's holding you back from greater success And so the kind of high level view is exposure is like how are you getting in front of potential listeners attraction is like What about your show when they see it is actually compelling enough to pull them back and so we can Get into tons of stuff there around like taverard and messaging and packaging and website and like any kind of initial Early touch point that somebody might have with the show like what's getting them over the line to click play Retention is then like once they click play are they sticking around past the first three minutes past the first episode and coming back more And then sales is obviously sales how you're getting people to buy your product of service. Yeah I'm excited to dive into each of those and what's funny is so I've been podcasting for Five and be six years. I've been a quote-unquote podcast expert since 2020 and With time kind of boiled down to almost an identical framework, but mine's in a different order So I would say mine is more like rm A-r-e-m But I'm really really curious before we dive in each individual one can you talk about why they are in this specific order? So this is it's interesting and I think ours are probably actually More similar than they appear on the surface. So I it's kind of almost and once I came with up with it It's like the ears work. So I'm gonna keep it in that order all right, but usually so essentially the order is the Process that a listener would take through the show ideally But where I work with people it's actually and this is the other reason I don't do this I start with a with the attraction and so it ends up being arse Which is kind of like then we're getting to like a cuss kind of cussing framework and I'm like well Maybe we shouldn't like go with that. We'll keep it here is the sanitized version But when I work with people we almost always start with like what about the show concept We have to start there because like everything is downstream of that and like if you have just a boring generic kind of commodity type show There's like no amount of money you can throw at it There's like literally nothing you can do to actually grow that show And so that's like this huge lever for if like you come up with a really interesting differentiated show It takes way less effort to market it. It's way faster to grow it. Yeah Everything is much easier. So that's kind of how I would work with people But the ears is how a listener would flow through that kind of cycle way more memorable That's that's hilarious. All right cool. So let's dive into each one So which one do we talk about first? Which one should we start with? Yes, I always start with people with the attraction most typically and that's where most people and I think when we talk about like podcasting getting way harder Around 2018-19-20 what's been exciting to me? It's a bit you probably aren't excited about this if you're creating your own show because it means like the bar is going up But the idea of like concept or premise has become so much more important and there's just so many more people coming up with interesting show ideas Rather than like it used to be like an interview show about this topic with like the world's leading experts And now like that has been so saturated that it is Almost impossible people will still continue to do this But likely they're famous or they have some kind of incredible Credibility that the average person does not have that makes them inherently interesting to think of like the Lex Friedman's of the world Where it's like your anti-heuberments. It's like there's something about them that is more interesting than the average show Starting an interview show on these topics. That's like three hours long or whatever it is And so totally I think that the big opportunity or potential for people who are looking to grow shows How do I make a show that is more interesting than a standard interview show and like what's the hook or premise that I can build around this That is like this just engaging frame that like every episode we put through this frame is now going to be interesting Because that premise is interesting at its core and so like one of the examples I think about a lot This is even it's still an interview show it's still a standard interview show And this can still be a part of many interesting show premises They can still be based on interviews But the YouTube show hot ones And so anybody who seen this this is a like a celebrity interview show which the celebrities get interviewed All day every day everywhere and so it's a really hard market to stand out in But what they've done is they've introduced this kind of this is a very gimmicky show And it's very visual and nature as well So it doesn't work as a podcast But like the the premise for people who haven't seen it is there's I think like six questions that the host Sean asks each guest and before each question they eat a progressively Spice-year hot wing and like the final ones are like super super super hot and it's just this like really you hear about that And you're like oh that just sounds interesting it sounds entertaining and you know it also sets up that like Oh, this is a different type of interview experience and I can just imagine like you kind of want to see Yeah, there's like a visceral pain element almost of like wanting to see whoever your favorite celebrity is like rolling around on the ground With like mouth on fire Actually, I haven't seen rolling around on the ground But there's some like great reactions on the show And so like that's a way more interesting premise than just like a celebrity interview show Another example that I've seen this is a great premise as well I think it's called Starfleet Leadership Academy And so this is a business podcast around leadership Some people could say pretty boring topic But the way they explore that topic the host does is he watches sequentially through the Star Trek series I don't know which series it is and from each episode distills the leadership principles that were on display in that episode And so you'd think about like this is just such a more interesting show about business leadership than any other Business leadership show because the premise is so interesting There's this unique device that they use to explore these concepts in a way that no other show does and it also creates IP nobody can copy that show because like he's already done it now like you can't yeah And interview show it's like anybody can do the same thing something like that You're like there can only be one show like that and as soon as somebody tries to copy it They're like no, no, no, that guy already did it and even have like legally you could do it It's like you're just you're copying his what he already did shout out to Jeff Aiken the founder The host of Starfleet Leadership Academy who was one of the very first students inside the growth show accelerator It's so cool you shout him out. Yeah, very cool. I come across this show. I think on Twitter Oh, we've connected before now. He's just like that is a great premise Yeah, Jeff is amazing and all credit to him. I had nothing to do with that premise So he just added a bit of us So okay, the listener though is like okay, I get it my show needs to be a little bit different for it to really stand out You know, maybe it shouldn't just be another or 60 minute interview show interviewing successful people So how would you recommend they try to find what their hot wing is like how do they find that unique thing to make their show stand out for me It's often looking at what other like once you start to recognize Whatever you call it like formats premises concepts You realize that they're everywhere and there's a great newsletter called formats unpack that essentially It doesn't across all media and so there's newsletters their TV shows There's podcasts there's YouTube channels and they essentially I think they have guest writers do one each issue I don't know how often the newsletter goes out But they break down like a unique format of a piece of media and explain why it works And so they cover many podcasts in the past and like read that newsletter just even a few issues And just start looking out for like what makes my favorite shows or any kind of content interesting And you'll often realize that it's not just an interview It's like the information might be good, but there's a unique way that the information is presented and framed and explored That makes it more interesting And so once you just start to like see those things like the easiest way to come up with an interesting format is Oh, I'm going to borrow that format from this totally different medium different topic Whatever it is and apply it to my concept and you realize that this just happens again and again and again And so like James clear has a newsletter the three two one newsletter where he shares I think it's like three ideas from him two quotes from other people and one thing to think about each week And he has a two million person email list or something like that And since his newsletter became super popular when he launched it a couple of years ago Tons of people and all these different niches have done similar like three two one or two three one or something like that Yeah, but it's totally different content, but the format is the same And so there's this that's not like the most Hockey concept ever but it is something that like people saw that they're like oh that works It's really easily digestible. I like that as a reader Maybe I can do something similar for my content as well. And so that's where I would start is like notice other stuff out there And say like you know, how could I apply something similar to this to my show And even like another example, I'm not sure how to pronounce his last name It's similar to the hot wings in a way, but it is in podcast format. His name's Neil Pazrica I think it's a CH that could be Pazrita But he's a show called three books And there's a lot of stuff I love about this show But essentially the concept for this show is he invites high performers on the show So so far it sounds basically like Tim Ferriss Yeah, but what he does is he asked every guest what were the three most influential or formative books of your life And so every interview there's only like three questions It's like okay, what are the three books and of course they go deeper on each of those things But it's because each person is unique and their relationship with He could have a hundred different people all say the same books even And they're all going to be different stories And so he's got this really unique framing for the episodes where as a listener It gives you something a little bit more tangible to grasp on too Like you can already expect what you're going to get out of the show And you might have some assumptions and imagine like oh I like it makes you think what were my favorite books Or like that have been most formative for me and so there's and he's an author as well And is is big in the writing space. So it's on brand as well But looking at things like that of like what's a device I could use to explore this topic in a way That's a little bit more tangible for the listeners before they've ever sinned in the first place Yeah, I think every single client I've ever worked with We start here right we start with the premise of the same deal We got to make this unique the way I circulated is Have a cat one premise category of one where the combination of the audience Mission and format is completely unique right so it can be a format that's used elsewhere But if it's a different mission and it for a different audience it works. It's unique But what I'm curious about though is in your experience in my experience That is the stage number one. It's at the beginning of our work together But it's also the stage where folks tend to have the most resistance Because I can't tell you how many people have said oh my content's great. That's fine I just need to help grow it again And I'm like oh man, we're gonna have to do some work here So I'm so curious totally selfishly How do you work through that resistance with the clients that you work with? I've been thinking about that a lot and it's easier to do one-on-one with people And I've done a lot of group programs and I've done like membership community and things like that It's much easier to do one-on-one when you can actually like spend an hour more Really digging into some of the stuff behind it and just asking questions Yeah And I think like a lot of times I think you and I who have a lot of experience in the podcasting world Could ask the right questions to somebody to say like Basically just ask like okay, why would somebody listen to this? And you can just go deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper Until you get to this realization that they come to that is like Oh, I guess there isn't really any reason And that's something that like I've heard from a lot of people Even in like the small group programs who go through one of their takeaways is like I realized there was no reason for anybody to listen to my show Like I was trying to do something that You know, I was basically cloning any Porterfield show or Tim Ferriss's show or whatever and I wasn't thinking that like They can do that because they're famous and that's the draw to the show that it's not the content It's them presenting the content That I think is the first step when you realize and it's a bit of a downer Because a lot of times like I said I work with people who've usually been producing their show for a year And a lot of times they're plateaued because they've like capped out this like Okay, we've got some like friends and family listen my existing network But part of that is they're doing it to be nice Because they know you like you are you're not famous to them But there is a connection and so that's why people are listening Whereas people who don't know you at all like there's no draw to the show from the outside So a lot of times it's getting to that realization that like Okay, the show I've constructed actually doesn't really have the potential No matter what I do marketing wise to grow beyond this And so we need to really look at how do we reconfigure things from the ground up And sometimes that means like putting the show on pause for a while Or just putting it on like maintenance mode and like yeah Just let's just keep it going out but we're gonna experiment some things and like test out Maybe some different formats or look at like small tweaks we can make on route to a bigger change in the future And it's usually like after the big change happens That things really just take off and I've had like four or five people rebrand their shows Rename with new design everything in the past three months And all of them it was like immediately It was just like my existing audience told me like yeah We never really understood that before it wasn't quite clear This new one just landed and like that to me is like I'm always so happy to hear that Because it people have such resistance to changing what they've been doing Yeah, and then it's like once you actually get it right It's just like you realize how hard you're making it for yourself and how much easier it can be Dude that so much We have there's so much alignment with what we say to our clients It's crazy people who are grow the show clients are gonna be like man This is what Kevin says, but in a different font It's awesome Yeah, it's invalidating for me as well That you're loud. I'm like oh my god. I say that too. Oh, yeah One of the distinctions that we made literally just yesterday on a group call in Grow the Show Was that when you have a premise that isn't unique or you know Just basically when you have the problems that you just described It's like those like drag race cars when they try to stop They like throw up a huge parachute behind them It's like having a giant parachute where it's like when you get more clear and get more unique with your premise As you said change the name to something that's more clear change the artwork to something that makes more sense It's like that that parachute gets snipped off and suddenly The show just goes so much faster without having to change anything else when it's it sounds like that's what you guys have experienced Yeah, 100% and I feel like that's a big thing that I think about a lot of times is like One of the actually first thing that I work on with people when they And this is kind of a newer addition to the my like flow of entry into the the program is kind of like Actually getting people just stop doing a whole bunch of stuff that is literally useless And even things like show notes I tell people like okay for where you're at right now Yeah, show notes don't matter at all If you're spending two hours a week on this cut it like put it into chat GBT or whatever AI tool you're using And like get a single paragraph. I don't care links whatever fine like make this take five minutes because this is not going to achieve This is not like a gross lever right now And there's like a bunch of stuff like that that you actually need to open up mental space Get some of that production stuff off your plate to actually be able to think a little bit deeper and experiment with some other parts of the process This is one of the things that I've noticed is that I don't know if you know the Eisenhower matrix Yeah, it's like the urgency versus importance. Yeah, so this is like a business management type tool I guess it was developed for and I guess it's attributed to Dwight Eisenhower But I don't know if he actually invented it But it's essentially there's like urgent versus important. It's a four by four matrix And so a lot of the things in life and in podcasting and yeah, basically everywhere The most important things are often least urgent And so you think about like your health and exercise and eating right and saving for retirement All these things it's like oh yeah, I'll do that one day But it's not urgent and so we put them off and I feel like the most important podcast tasks Refining your premise and all these things also fit into that category Whereas like all of the Production tasks these are important or they're they're both important and urgent They need to get done every week to stick with your schedule But they also they just are not going to have that impact on the long term And so we like prioritize those we've got the deadlines we need to get the show And so we just fill up our schedule with those things and lead no time For anything else that's bigger picture thinking Yeah, and so a lot of times I think you you got to like make some Concessions in the short term and like maybe even like lower the quality to some extent To allow you to actually take a step forward in the future Yeah, it's tough and it's hard and especially after someone like Join your program like phase you and you're like all right We got to change everything like yeah, I thought we were just growing the show I'm like please trust me stick with me. Yeah, this is gonna take a while But this is gonna work. I promise you Yeah, so let's assume now we've got the premise locked in. It's something unique It's other that makes sense, you know the podcaster's audience is like finally do I get it now then what now? What do we do the next categories retention and so this plays there's a couple levels to this and There's some overlap with the Attraction so it's like a lot of times if you have a great premise It actually makes the in-episode experience better And so that might come down to the structure of the individual episodes Which you know is part of some premises as well not for all But for me a lot of this is down to essentially like your engagement with your audience And then the structure of the actual listener experience within an episode is the kind of the two prongs of the retention side of things And so both of these I feel like if you Initiate engagement a lot of times like a lot of people wait for engagement to come to then every podcaster like wants more engagement And that what they don't realize is like you could just go identify people who you already know listen to your show and just start Interacting with them on a regular basis every day Just comment on their stuff on Instagram or Twitter wherever you're you're at they will then reciprocate and a lot of times people Feel like I think they look at people who are creating content or something and think like oh that person must get so many Dm so many emails whatever I would don't want to like clutter their inbox or anything or I don't want to bother them Not everybody's like that but a lot of people are and I think if you make the effort to go out there as start engaging more They become bigger fans of yours that kind of the center of gravity kind of like increases And they begin to like pull more people in and because now you're like starting this public conversation They're more likely to amplify your stuff And so it's gets seen by more people and there's this really like positive flywheel effect But you need to kind of kickstart that so on the engagement side That's one of the things is like actually just taking the initiative and going and starting that engagement Either with existing listeners or with people you see out and your your social feeds who may not listen But should be listeners like you can all kind of tell I think like this person's a perfect fit for my show I can see like there's somebody who would probably enjoy what I do so starting there And then that other prong is like the actual episode content like quality and this Is going to be different for every show, but I think there's a lot of stuff like the basic stuff is like really For me around the starting and ending points of the episodes I often think of it as like a kind of like smile graph where it's like you want to start the episode super strong and hook people And then you want to leave them on a high note where they're just something called the peak end rule that people might have heard about Which is that people judge Experiences and remember them based on the peak experience or the peak moment within that experience and how it ended And so you could have this like really amazing trip to Disney world But if it ended on the last day with like your kids throwing a tantrum You're going to have a much lower impression of it even though most of the trip was really good And so I often think about that with podcasting is like okay We need to hook them off the start and get like right in the content and like validate their decision to Listen within the first few minutes and then if we can leave them It doesn't need to be this like bomb shall take away But thinking about like what's the emotion that we're leading people with and a lot of the my favorite shows I I think about like the ending they like lead me with a feeling where I'm just like It's like oh that was so satisfying and a lot of that is what happens in the last few minutes Yeah, regardless of what happened in the previous you know 60 or whatever it is So a lot of that I think paying more attention. I think most people pay a lot of attention to their like Actual questions they ask their gas are like the meaty content And I think actually people should spend a lot more time focused on that the first question And whatever that last closing whether it's a question or a kind of like narrative piece that you have in there How you think about music at the ending probably not just watering it down with like three minutes of ads for your stuff at the end Like be selective with that. Yeah, that's kind of the 80-20 that I think about with retention there That's funny. I go hard on the beginning right I tell every every listener of the show knows every week I'm like intro make your intro better But I've never actually considered actually on the end of the content You know trying to wrap it up on a good note and I think back to my my very first show when I got started as a podcaster was about Philadelphia and I remember How people would reach out and be like this episode ended so well and I kind of like I'm until you just said that I kind of forgot that I got that all the time and I didn't do it intentionally But every single person that I interviewed the last question I always asked them was stolen from Tim Therris And it was you know if you could know my show is about Philly and I was like if you could get a one message to every single Philadelphia and you know billboard playing this guy whatever it is what would you say to them And the guests always came up with this just like profound incredible Message and I would end it with music underneath and I had no like up until he's literally just this moment You said that I had no idea what I was accidentally doing But that was the only time that I've ever actually had that locked in so the wow So I think what I'll do and just like reflecting my own takeaways is put a little bit more attention into how we end Grow the show episodes to maybe I don't know summarize or wrap things up Is that what you say like well tactically? How do you how do you end it on a great note? Obviously, I mentioned I have a background in music So for me a lot of it comes down to music and I've produced a show I've like made the mistake of the last show that I did I vastly miscoped it and part of that was like I had different every episode at different music I had like musical yeah narrative breaks in between and stuff that like it was a highly produced narrative show Been there too The but I was like there was the closest thing to me as a creator to actually writing songs and recording them where I was like I just wanted to listen through them again and again and again because I was like oh man The music like really hits here and there's like that emotion or whatever And so if you're like if you love doing that stuff in you have the bandwidth that's a great way to do it But there's like one of my favorite shows is it's called poetry unbound As a really interesting show for many reasons But essentially the the format is that the host podreg he has a short little story to open up And then he reads through a poem and usually it's like two minutes long And then he gives an analysis of it and explains what's happening and then he reads it again and then it ends And so there's like 15 minute episodes and as a aside what was fascinating to me I've written a news that are post about this was like One of the things that has always kind of like I like poetry But I never like read it and always the reason was that it makes me feel dumb and I'm like what is this supposed to mean like Yeah, I feel like if I was a true like connoisseur like I would be able to decipher what's happening here And one of the interesting things that I've learned from his show He's a very like accomplished poet is most of his analysis of the episode is this makes me think about this Or I wonder if this is what they were trying to say and it really spoke to me on a marketing level where a lot of times We like look at what people are doing and we think that we're dumb because we don't understand why they're doing it some way Why did they use these words in their copy? Why are they structuring their episode this way? And instead I think the value is actually in asking like I wonder if they were trying to do this or I wonder It makes me think that maybe you know, this is what's happening And so as a quick like marketing aside of like because that's how my brain works everything ties back into marketing That's something interesting I've learned from that show But that show always ends on the same music It's just like their theme music and it's like so It encapsulates the experience and they're very Music heavy like the music there's I would say 30 Seconds of like almost no dialogue and it's just like letting the music take you out of this experience and like transition back into the next episode of your life or whatever And I think a lot of people like it's like quit talking episode ends and it's like kind of abrupt And so I think this depends on what the vibe of your show is in the experience you want to give people But I think for one just thinking about what is my show about what is the feeling people are probably having and do I want to create you know Space for them do I want to like bring up the energy at the end do I want to like ramp it down like what's the the end note that I want to leave people with and how can I use You know production elements or some kind of like scripting or narration to support that and kind of like you mentioned as well I think like takeaways and summaries things like that Reflections it could be but I think it comes down to like what is that experience you want to leave people with and then Doing what you can to like amplify that awesome So okay, we've talked about how to redesign the show We've talked about how to improve the show But Jeremy, how do we grow the show? Everybody thinks there is like an exposure element and that's how I've kind of titled this with with the ears framework is exposure And so there's a lot we could say about you know borrowing other people's audiences cross promotions feed swaps Social media all these different things. I really think that Podcasting is so hard because we don't have good data My suspicion is that most shows get more exposure and attention than they realize and it's actually the lack of a compelling premise or Copywriting problems or that actually keeps them from capitalizing on it So I think when it comes to growth. This is why that premise Matters is that you are getting more attention than you are aware of and people are saying no They're like passing by it. It's not catching their attention or they're seeing it. They're like nope That's not for me or they're not Cargely saying that's not for me. They're like not convinced enough that it's for them They have some seed of doubt of like oh, maybe it looks kind of interesting Maybe I'll add it to my listen later list or whatever, but they're not getting into it So just to like hammer the point home like that premise packaging Messaging copywriting matters a lot for growth just for like capitalizing on the existing attention that you are probably already getting Even though you might not be aware of it. Yeah, and then after that I think once you have that locked in then it's time to like kind of just go to town and like okay How can I get this out in front of you know my ideal listeners? And so I think there's no like big secrets here in my mind It's like how do you borrow other people's audiences or build an audience on one platform that you can then redirect to another And so that could be social media and usually what I would say for social media is like You're gonna have a really hard time getting people to listen to your podcast through social media But you are going to have any much easier time getting people onto your email list from social media Through which you can then direct them back to the podcast and you can do that You can automate that through your welcome sequence and all kinds of stuff I know that's a whole other like tech platform But for a lot of people in business you probably already have an email list or you might not have capitalized on it Or might not be using it that well But you can set it up some things that you can just have a great lead magnet and a welcome sequence You create each of those things once and you can use that welcome sequence to direct everybody back to your podcast And if you want to get really technical you can even do some kinds of segmentation where you're going to present them You're going to ask them on the welcome email like you know, which of these describes you most They click a link and then they get an automatic email with let's say three podcasts recommendations That are perfectly tailored to somebody in their situation Those are things you can do once set it up The tech is not that hard to figure out And now you have a much lower friction way to get people from social media Or essentially anywhere into your content ecosystem And then you can like sell them on the podcast after that So for me like I'm a huge like email first even though I'm in the the podcasting world I mean, I also write two newsletters at the moment and have no podcasts as a bright now So I'm a huge email nerd But I think for a business owner like email is where the money is and so like Make sure you're getting people on that as well as the podcast again Your email subscribers to listen to podcasts podcasts listeners to get onto the email list And then looking at like who else has the audience I want and how can I partner with them collaborate with them Advertise on their platforms whatever it might be to get in front of them Yeah, so I'd love to talk more tactically about that Like what are ways that you found that you've been able to get your clients to successfully Be able to collaborate with other creators and folks who have an audience to quote-unquote borrow their audience as you said For a lot of hosts especially anybody who's teaching anything like podcast guestings A really natural type of activity or type of collaboration to pursue At two is getting more competitive And so there's I can't remember the I think his name is Andrew Chen And I'm pretty sure he was one of the early marketers at Uber I think I think it was Uber not Airbnb But anyway he has coined this phrase if it's the right time thing Yeah, it's called the law of shitty click-throughs And it's this marketing phenomenon that essentially any marketing tactic that exists Eventually becomes watered down it works well at the start And then everybody jumps on the bandwagon it gets watered down Yeah, and so like podcast guesting is certainly something that this has happened to Where it used to be really easy to get on shows And now it's much much harder And so the thing and this is like even from a brand perspective And can tie in heavily to your premise as well For podcast guesting to work today like you need a point of view That is distinct and unique And not something that everybody else is saying And this is something that's like hard to teach Like I can't tell you what your point of view should be It has to be internal It has to be based on your beliefs about your ecosystem and your space And what the gaps are Usually when I talk to people about this it's like okay no matter who There's people like that we all look up to in our spaces and there's people we disagree with I like looking at both of those and saying like okay What do I think the people who I ardently disagree with And think that they have the wrong approach to whatever my topic is Like what is my alternative to that and why don't I agree with that But then also looking at the people you do agree with and you do like And saying like what do I think they're wrong about I feel like there's some gold that can be found in there That really builds out your point of view A lot of times we end up trying to I'm not even trying to but we subconsciously emulate our heroes and idols But I think developing that practice of like what do I think they're wrong about Because they are certainly wrong about things Like nobody is 100% right about anything And so training yourself to think about like is this right and like why is this right Or why make this be wrong? That's going to open up really interesting ground for you to occupy And build your brand around and create content around that makes you a really interesting alternative. So podcast guesting that can really help for that But yeah That law that you shared reminds me of a presentation I saw a mastermind earlier this year by Rich Shepher I think his name is Yeah He mapped out how every marketing tactic has like a five-year lifespan Where at the very beginning you get massive, massive returns Just because you're early to it Because you're just one of the few people doing it And it's like this new marketing channel And so there's just all this attention that's untapped And then with time and it's like all seems to always be a five-year horizon By the end of the five years Everybody is doing that like it pick over the time it becomes more expensive to do it There's more competition to do it And then by the end of it you kind of have to do it Because everybody else is doing it But you don't get any results Just because you're doing the thing Like earlier on and so I guess the challenge there This kind of is outside of the scope of podcasting But I guess for just us as business owners The challenge is what is that thing now Where you get outside's marketing returns Just because you're one of the few people doing that I don't know what the answer to that is The dangerous thing there is too Like there's a huge amount of luck Because there are always going to be things Like there's always new stuff up and coming And you can like that on the wrong horse And I think partly not everybody is suited to be an early adopter to everything And I think a lot of the people who really win big on those things Some people get lucky And other people are just compulsive experimenters Like this is their job And they are marketers or experimenters Or whatever it is that like they just are active everywhere And trying everything out And they understand They've been doing it long enough that they understand the trends And the bigger picture of how everything fits together Whereas like most business owners Like you're not going to be in that position And so I think it's like Not necessarily even worth trying It's like how can you be like an early laggard I think is the term after early adopter It's like okay this is showing promise I've seen it validated Like now let me start to think about taking this seriously But also knowing that like okay When Twitter was potentially going down Then blue sky and like all these other ones mastered on I mean you could make an argument that like Those have been somewhat successful But I don't think anybody that I know is like Blown up an audience on there On any of those platforms that You know when the big Exodus was happening Or you look at Clubhouse And like all these other ones like There was a very brief window Where some people did really well And then they just kind of tamed And so I think like It's a bit of a risky game trying to like Pick the right horse to bet on Sometimes you might win Oftentimes you might not And you kind of have to just like Be in the right place in the right time Yeah Yeah I know a couple people who really went all in on Clubhouse And just like move their whole business strategy to Clubhouse Back in 20th like What March 21 or whatever it was Yeah There was cost to that Because it disappeared too A virtually disappeared two months later And then they were like oh no Now I'm going to rely on this thing What I try to do is like I just look at what is Like the huge creators That are known to be super bleeding edge Like as an example Gary Vaynerchuk Like he's got an entire army of people Figuring out what that bleeding edge thing is And so it's like What is he talking about right now And have him tell me what to be an early laggardon Also I mentioned Rich Sheffern he's got a whole thing I haven't bought it But it's called Stealier winners Which I think that's the whole premise is that Stealier winners or something like that The whole premise is that Hey we're going to go figure out What these marketing tactics are They get early returns So that you can just hop on them So either way Let's bring it back to podcasting Unless do you have any other thoughts on that The last thing on that I think is just It's funny because this It goes back to the premise concept too And everything And I think we get sucked into We want to do things that feel safe As just as people And so we tend to do things That are like what other people have done And we often assume That other people are more successful than they are And so I think when you're looking at Okay Gary Vaynerchuk is talking about this But I don't really see anybody else doing that Like it feels risky for me to go all in on that Even though Gary is saying it And so we don't And so I think When you're innovating in any respect You don't know you're on the right track By the fact that nobody else is doing it But you almost know that you're on the wrong track If everybody else is doing what you're doing Hmm And so like right or wrong Like you have to do something different Probably if standing out in a big way is your goal And there is some real Necessary discomfort to that Totally Great point Okay, so let's talk about The last piece Sales So how can our listeners Generate sales from their podcast Yeah, so I mentioned email before I think podcasting is just A great medium for many things Not a great medium for anything Called the action oriented People are just too busy There's too much friction They're often doing other things And so that's where really for me Like podcasting is where you can really accelerate And warm up that relationship In a short amount of time Where people can binge Through their episodes But email is just a much better platform for sales And part of this There's an idea called platform psychology That is essentially like People associate certain actions With certain Platforms and mediums And people are just not accustomed To buying things through podcasting Whereas I think Probably everybody listening Has bought something Through an email at some point in their life Probably many times And maybe it's on a weekly basis even And so email as a platform Like has the associated behavior of Sometimes I buy things through email And I have clickable links That make it easy to go to the sales page And all this like stuff Just as in emails favor And so for me A lot of like what I work with people Over the longer term This is usually not something That we're just like Get done in the first couple months It's like okay We cover the podcast side of things But we also want to build up an email strategy Where you have a reason to get people onto the list And then you also have some kind of regular correspondence Doesn't need to be like a 2000 word email every week But just like some thing That people like open your emails for That they enjoy getting They have a positive association with your emails And then when your promotion comes around Like they're going to open the email At least and hopefully You know the offers are also suited to them So that's kind of like From a structural Stand point I think some of the prerequisites And then from there You can get a lot more into like campaigns From a like cross platform Stand point where like You can structure your podcast episodes To kind of queue people To and like prime them to buy Almost by answering some of their objections up front Not explicitly But like you know Okay I want I've got this new offer I know these are the things that people might say Like oh well is it for me Or like you know I can't do that because of this Or whatever You can create a podcast episode around Each of those things leading up to it So now when you actually open the cart And announce the thing People are like Oh okay this actually is 100% for me Like I've all my questions have been answered Totally And I already like Kevin And this new program is up here It's going to help me go where I want to get to And I have no excuses left And so it's like a really Maybe not easy I think sales is never like super super easy There's always you're like The people's inclination is to say no to almost anything So you're always kind of fighting against that But it's going to be much easier Than if you haven't put that leg work in You know over the previous few weeks Or month or whatever Kind of like Priming people talking about the topic Getting them thinking about it Overcoming those objections And then you know opening the cart then Oh yeah It's so true Whenever I get an application for the Grow the Show Accelerator And I say like what do you need help with And they like I'll see an application That like uses my phrasing To describe what they need help with They're like I need to cat one premise I'm like nice That's going to be a fun call Because they already are so familiar With what I talk about Awesome Okay cool So now it sounds like Now just before we move on to wrap things up You kind of alluded to this earlier But it sounds like What you're saying is Understand that the podcast is about As good of a lead nurturing mechanism as you'll ever get You can cta your stuff on your podcast But it sounds like what you're saying is The goal is to really get them onto your email list Because that's where you're going to have The best bridge From listener audience member too Actually you know paying customer and client Is that the gist? Yeah I think of like You know there's no reason not to do CTAs in your podcast necessarily I mean maybe there are some But like I haven't noticed any like Real big red flag or anything I just wouldn't have any Expectations that people will actually do anything with it And so from a Like marketing perspective There's like many stages that people need to go through If we go back to like thinking about a classic funnel Like awareness is at the top And so that exists for everything It exists for like you as a business But it also exists for your individual offers And so I would more think about Using the podcast to create awareness That this thing exists Even if you're not going to take action on it right now And then the email is going to be the more timely prompt To like hey here's this thing happening Maybe there's some urgency to it And it's a bit of a I want to say like people Don't like hard pitching or anything like that That's not what you need to do to sell You don't need to do like hard pitching Sleasy anything like that You should essentially have an offer That helps people that are very clearly Get from where they are to where they want to go And if you can articulate that like Okay you're here you want to be here Here's this bridge to get there And you can do that in the compelling way Like you can do really well at sales Especially if they're already a warm audience Who knows likes and trust you from the show And so really like the email Though is going to be that action oriented Like okay here's the thing This is where you are This where you want to go Click the link to learn more Or sign up or whatever But hopefully they've already been made aware of it Through the podcast Over the previous you know Months or however long it is Totally This was an absolute masterclass In how to grow monetize a podcast for a business owner You know before I ask you What people can do if they want to learn more from you Is there any piece that you feel that we Haven't touched on that the listeners should know I spent all my time talking about concept and premise And that kind of stuff of just like starting At the ground floor When you've been doing your show for a while There's a lot of sunk costs that goes into it But I think at some point If you've tried and I talk with so many people who have like I've done promo swaps I've done collaborations I've guessed on shows none of it's worked I would take a hard look in the mirror at that point And say like okay I've done these things that work for other people What does that mean about my show It could mean you're getting front of the wrong audience Or it could mean that you're getting in front of the right audience But you don't have something that's interesting enough to them To really pull them back And so I think like we kind of mentioned before Once you actually experience that Of like having something that people just flock to When you tell them about it I always think about looking for these eyes light up moments So like when you give somebody like the one or two sentence pitch of your show Are they like reaching for their phone And they're like oh I got to download that right now That's the signal that you're on the right track If they're like oh yeah that sounds really interesting I'll check that out later That's oh I'm going to be polite And you know they're not kind of So yeah start at the ground level And nail that down And everything will be much much easier going forward Yeah incredible Couldn't agree more Dude if folks you know want to learn more More from you getting touched with you What should they do I yeah put a page together At podcastmarketingacademy.com slash grow the show All one word nice And there I've got we talked about the ears framework today I've actually got a automated quiz audit That you can take that You answer 20 questions Takes about two minutes And it will give you a ranking in each of those ears category So you can kind of see where you might be weak Where you might be strong And what you can do to fix any of those issues that you might have Awesome Well we'll throw the link in the show notes Folks can go check that out there Jeremy Dude thank you so much for the time this rocked Yeah this was so much fun Thanks so much for having me Kevin My pleasure