167 | Pat Flynn: Secrets to Long-Term Podcast Growth & Success

When you're not enjoying the process, your audience is going to feel that. They're going to feel it through the energy that you put into your show. When you're having fun creating, your audience is going to have fun listening. That's really important. That is Pat Flynn. Over the past 15 years, he's generated a digital empire that has touched millions. Through his platform and podcast Smart Passive Income, Pat has amassed over 60 million downloads and generated millions of dollars in sales to his membership, courses, events, and products. But what's even crazier about Pat's success is just how long he has stayed on top of the game. Because let's face it, being a consistent online creator while growing a seven-figure company takes a ton of energy and can burn you out really freaking fast. So how has Pat managed to stay on top of the podcast charts for 15 plus years while also growing a company into the millions raising a family and staying sane? He's going to share his secrets today. By the end of this episode, you're going to learn three things. First, Pat's going to teach you his strategies that you can steal to keep your content new and exciting for years to come. It was at that moment that I knew that I would never give up with the podcast. Those are the two strategies I used to just keep going and keep it fresh for people. Then he's going to outline how you can make your content stand out in a crowded and saturated market. Especially as a content creator in order to stand out today. And he's going to change the way that you think about burnout, doubt, and imposter syndrome. I started a question myself as far as am I even qualified to teach this? And what I've learned is that the imposter syndrome is actually a great sign because it comes in right before major growth happens. And of course, it wouldn't be grow the show if we didn't ask Pat how we can grow the show. Thousands of my own students grow their show and they're just using just that strategy alone. So if you're ready to learn how you can set yourself up to be on top of the podcast game for years, even decades to come, then stick around to this episode of Grow the Show. Recently, a publishing episode about finding fun. You publish a solo episode of SPI about finding fun in the process. Can you talk about how you discovered why that is important? First, why is it important for us to have fun? Yeah, I mean, I think in the beginning of our podcasting journey, a lot of us know that it's fun. It's fun to discover new elements of the space. It's fun to see what happens. It's fun to get behind the mic for the first time and have conversations. But over time, we start to go through this pattern of just, well, it just feels the same every time. And as soon as you hit publish on one, it's like, okay, now I got to go through the whole cycle again and do it again and then do it again. And oftentimes we also hear advice from others that says, you know, you got to automate as much as possible. You got to systematize this thing. And then this thing that we started for fun or even for business that was exciting, you know, we have that honeymoon period starts to feel just kind of robotic over time. And when that happens, that's typically when we start to see pod fade, you know, people start to not enjoy the process anymore. And when you're not enjoying the process, your audience is going to feel that. Even if you don't say it directly, they're going to feel it through the energy that you put into your show. So what I love about the idea of just finding the fun as a principal is it always speaks to the person's curiosity, the host of the show. And when you can follow your curiosity and find some fun moments. And I don't mean fun like you have to have confetti in the background in every episode or you have to, you know, be so kind of extroverted, if you will. And that's hard to do for an introvert, especially for somebody like me. It's just when you're having fun creating your audience is going to have fun listening, right? It's more engaging that way. And they feel that again, I use that word quite often when it comes to podcasting is energy, because we feel an energy through hearing a person's voice on the mic. And whether it's a video podcast or an audio podcast, that's really important. So over the years, I've been able to continue to sort of tickle that curiosity that I have. But there have been moments where I've wanted to quit. I've wanted to, you know, I feel like I've been burning out. And it's always when I find something new or something different that kind of gets me energized again. And I can then give that energy through to the audience. The other thing that I think about in addition to just having fun with the process and discovering new ways to have fun with the process over time, which keeps it fresh for me as a creator and fresh for the audience, is I often have to remind myself, why am I doing this in the first place, right? And I try to set up systems to remind me constantly about why I do what I do. And one of those systems is I have my assistant Jess. She actually creates a folder from me in my Gmail account of anybody who replies after we send out an email or talk about a podcast episode who hits reply and replies back and says thanks or offers a story about how the podcast has helped them in some way, shape, or form. So that in those moments, when I'm not feeling the energy or not wanting to do it right now, or this week, I'll go into that folder and just start to read some of those and remember that, wow, this is not for me. It's actually four other people. There are actual human beings listening on the other end. And for every one email that you get, you might have a thousand people who aren't going to email you who have similar feelings. So those are the two strategies I used to just keep going and keep it fresh for people. Can you give me an example of a time where you like really wanted to stop and you caught yourself and managed to actually find something new or something fun within what you're currently doing? Yeah, I mean, the biggest moment that happened for me when I almost really quit was about 2011 slash 2012. I started my podcast in 2010. That being said, I bought my equipment in08. So it took me a year and a half to just get the courage to kind of publish. But I finally had the show come out in July of 2010. And then a year and a half later, I was feeling those feelings of just, well, should I continue to do this? The numbers were the same every episode. I wasn't really growing and plus blogging back then was more successful for me. I was blogging three times a week and podcasting just once a week and the blog had way more traffic than the podcast at the time today. It's actually flip flopped. But back then I wanted to quit. And just by happenstance, I had gotten an email from somebody in Poland and the subject line of this email was Pat, you saved my life. How am I not going to open that? I mean, I don't suggest you just say that in your subject lines for your emails just to get opens. But, you know, I clicked because I was curious, of course. And I read this story. It's like an assays worth of information. And it was a story about this guy's name is Michal from Poland who said that about six months into my podcast or a year prior to this email, this person had gotten to a terrible accident and started listening to my show. And it was my show that kept him going and encouraged him to just kind of continue to learn and educate and get inspired for the future. So with two broken legs, he decided that he was going to run a marathon and he was telling me this story. And I was like, wow, that's crazy. Like you can't even walk yet. You are setting this crazy goal for yourself. He said it was one particular episode that inspired him to do that. And at the end of this email was an image of him running across the finish line at the Warsaw, so in Poland, full marathon, 26.2 miles, holding up a sign and the sign was in Polish. So I wasn't able to read it, but it translated to thank you to God, thank you to his kids and thank you and right in the corner Pat Flynn was there. And dude, I got to tell you, I was bawling while I was reading this email because I wanted to quit. I didn't want to do this anymore. I didn't think that this was really having an effect on anybody yet. This whole time, this person for eight to 12 months was listening to the show every day. And I was helping him through his physical therapy and he credited me for being able to accomplish the goal and then fast forward into the future because he's become a well renowned author. He is a top podcaster in Poland has written books with over 100,000 sales. And he credits a lot of that to me as well, which is wild. So it was at that moment that I knew that I would never give up with the podcast because I don't even know who's listening out there. And now I remind myself of that story and other stories. And this is why even just that sort of Gmail folder works for me because it triggers that reminder for me. And then so what I do within that is try to find new ways to connect with my audience. That to me is fun. How can I connect with my podcast listening audience? And right now we're doing that at SPI through a community that we've built. So SPI Pro and it's been really amazing to have direct conversations with listeners about even individual episodes just like almost today. You telling me that this episode about finding the fun has affected you and can be a topic we talk about today. And that lights me up. So I'm always looking for topics that become discussion points now in the audience and that to me is super fun. Yeah, fantastic. Now in a different so episode recently, you mentioned that lately you've been feeling particularly reinvigorated about interviewing. First of all, I've been wearing that right. Like that's how you feel for sure. And I've been realizing that I'm very much motivated by the challenge of something. I've been watching a lot of interviews on YouTube and getting inspired by people like Colin and Samir who ask really good questions. And of course Sean over at Hot Ones on YouTube as well who is probably the best interviewer there is. I've been getting inspired by him and those guys for sure and asking myself, how can I take that and bring it to my show? Not asking the same questions, but how can I go a little bit deeper with my with my guest? I've worked so hard to get them here on the show. I want to make the most of this opportunity versus for good several years. It was just more automatic if you will. And I feel like yes, I did a good job of interviewing this people, but it was less intentional to get better versus just let me just go through the motions. Got it. Okay, cool. You just I think it was last week you published an episode with Brian Lubin who was an early student of Grow the Show. So that was a cool moment for us. Yeah, so he's just crushed it the past two or three years. But that was so cool hearing you interview him. And for me, what really stuck out was you sounded really impressed. You were just like, it was cool to hear somebody who is so kind of up and coming and new to the game and how you were just coming from the place of like, yeah, tell me like, what do you have to teach me? Which is not that we wouldn't expect that from you, but it still was just really, really stark and cool. So I think what I'd love to know is like with time, as people start to consider you the expert quote unquote on things. You should, as I say that, right? So that's this is what I want to get at here. It's like, do you consider yourself that business expert? Because Brian's, you know, he's been on the scene for a couple of years now. And as I said, I was just so impressed at how you were asking him how he goes about designing his business. And for me, I don't know. It's just a weird place when people start looking to you. And they're just like, what do I do? Right? Just as the expert and you're like, oh, yo, I don't really know. Like, I'm doing my own thing here. I'm just sharing what I'm learning. So I guess my question for you is can comment on that dynamic and how have you experienced what I'm talking about? I think I've probably re-recorded that question. But I think you know what I'm going to get at it. I'll do my best to decipher the code you just sent over a few things. First of all, Brian is awesome. And in fact, in a couple hours, I'm going to be a guest along with my CEO of my company, Matt, on his show. So I'm just kind of coming full circle already. So I'm really excited about that on the idea of being an expert. You know, I've always struggled with that because in the beginning, I started my business helping people pass an architectural exam. And this exam was very difficult and I barely pass it myself. So when I started publishing about it to help others because there was no resources online about it, I started a question myself as far as am I even qualified to teach this? The imposter syndrome really, really set in. And what's really interesting and what I've learned is that the imposter syndrome comes in right before major growth happens. It's actually a great sign that you have that because it means that you are sort of expanding your boundaries and going beyond what's normal, beyond what's average in your life. So the growth happens right and around when the time you feel that imposter syndrome. So you kind of have to plow through that and lean forward. And then find those things, the signals that prove to you that you know what you're talking about because you probably know a lot more than you do and we often discount how much we know when we're sharing it with others. And so finding any sort of proof of truth to the stories is important because oftentimes the imposter syndrome comes in with stories that we just make up that are untrue. So when you can find the truth amongst those things, it'll sort of counteract those heavy thoughts that can often stop you in your tracks. And for me, the idea of like being an expert, it's like, I know there's a lot more room for me to grow. But at the same time, I know that I've gone down a path that others are going into for the first time. So therefore, I actually could offer a few bits of advice here. Even though I don't know everything, I've gone down the path before. It's almost like, you know, I often use this analogy where I'm in the jungle and I have a machete. And I'm just kind of clearing the forest and I'm getting scratched up here and there. And I noticed that there's this dangerous thing over here on the right-hand side. There's another dangerous thing on the left-hand side. And everybody behind me who's following me, I can just say, hey guys, watch out for this. Watch out for this. I don't know necessarily what's ahead, but I know what's behind me that you can look out for so that you don't follow in those same traps. And I can actually just clear the way for you too. It's kind of how I like to feel when I am considering like, well, am I really an expert? I have experience. And that experience can be beneficial for others. Now, what I've learned is that especially as a content creator, in order to stand out today, you have to actually take ownership in some new thoughts around the space that you're in, meaning you have to plant a flag somewhere. Because if you play it safe and you kind of try to please everybody if you will, or you just have like average thoughts if you want to call it that, then it's not really worth following you because you don't have anything that you can sort of stand for that then other people can stand alongside with you. And so I've learned this from Ramit Sethi who has a website, I will teach it to be rich. He has a Netflix series now and a book and all this kind of stuff. In a way, he's very polarizing, but because of that, he's able to help more people. And I'm not saying you got to be polarizing, but you have to take a stand and create your own with the experiences that you've had, with the interviews that you've done, with all the learnings that you've gone through over your time, come up with something and make it your own and own it. And although it might draw a line in the sand and yes, that means there might be some other people on the other side, that means now there's a side that you're on that other people can come along to. So for Ramit, for example, I mean, he takes it to a whole new level, but he says, you know what, you don't need to buy a home. For most people, you shouldn't. Here's why and he lays it out. He doesn't just say that to cause a stir. He has a case for that, right? And as a result of that, people listen. People argue, but then they have a discussion and they can learn from that. And for some people, it's true. You shouldn't buy a home and renting makes more sense. And he actually is somebody who does that as well. He says that you should spend money on lavish things, as long as those are things that bring joy in your life. That is you living your rich life, where other people will not spend three dollars on a latte. He's going right now into this big, I follow Ramit a lot because he's just kind of fascinating his, how his mind works. Fun. He's doing this thing now where he's like, he's calling out people who own large trucks. The trucks, yeah. And he's like, you don't need these trucks. Like you're spending way too much money and way too much money on gas for these things that you don't even haul anything in them. You just drive it. And you know, and he's again talking about money, but he's drawing a line in the sand and thus he's able to now command an audience and actually have a movement. It's very similar to Gary Vee. He says his things and he says the same things all the time. But we know what he stands for and you either love him or you hate him. And that for me as a people pleaser was very difficult to do. And I'm still sort of fighting with that if you will. But I do have some things that I say now, like every creator should have a podcast. If you don't, you're not best serving your audience. And that's one thing a flag that I plant in the ground that I really stand behind. Yeah, let's talk a little bit more about that because yeah, I mean, we're obviously talking to podcasters. But I also know that a lot of a lot of the podcasters anyway that I interact with one-on-one from the show, from what we do here. A lot of them are kind of like after they've been doing it for a while. They're like, shouldn't I be doing this? Is this really worth my time if they haven't seen any growth yet? So can you share with them why do you think that every creator should have a podcast? Oh, this is great. So imagine how long a person might spend reading a blog post. Many people aren't even reading blog posts anymore. But when you do, you're reading five, ten minutes worth and you're skipping around. It's not very in-depth. And if you need in-depth information, you often go to a book or go elsewhere to go a little bit deeper. On a YouTube video, I have two YouTube channels that have done very well. If I have people watching more than five to six minutes of one of those videos, that is really good. Because YouTube attention spans are dwindling, especially with the advent of TikTok, shorts, reels, very, very short attention spans. You can hold a person's attention with a podcast for 30 minutes, 45 minutes, one hour of your time. And that you cannot get anywhere else. There's something so unique about the listener behavior where a person could absorb your content while in the very intimate setting of their car or while traveling or at the gym or on a walk with their dogs or wherever. You cannot get in front of people and have them pay attention for that long with any other type of content. And this is a major case why podcasting is huge. And although you don't have the algorithm like YouTube does to get in front of more people, there are definitely tactics and strategies to grow that are still working today in the world of podcasting. But when you do get in front of people, you get to build a very, very deep rapport with those people. Then this brings up the idea of building super fans, right? Which is my book from 2019, which is you don't need very many people in your audience who are super fans of yours to create an incredible business, an incredible life. You just need like a thousand, right? And that's doable. And if you imagine a room for the 1000 people that you're speaking in front of and you get the opportunity to speak in front of them every single week, that's what podcasting is like. Imagine how expensive that would be to set that up in person and then have people travel and you need hotels and all this stuff. Now, you have their attention and you just need a few shoot for a thousand people. You've got something going on that you can monetize in a very genuine way and have people go to a bat for you and market for you, talk about you, and grow your business from within through referrals and recommendations versus all the more tactical things that we often think about when it comes to growth. Totally. So 100% podcasting is, you know, having a podcast listener is one of the strongest relationships, one of the best audience relationships you can have. But what you mentioned is also true is that it's very hard to get a podcast listener because there's no built-in recommendation engine or anything like that. So is the flip side true? Do you think that every podcaster should have X? So is it a newsletter? Is it should they question I get all the time? Is do I need to be on YouTube? So I'd love to know your take. Like what do you think every podcaster should be doing outside of their podcast? Every podcaster should have relationships with other podcasters in their space. Number one biggest thing that has helped me grow my show is collaborations with other people in the same space that I'm at. Whether it's them on my show, it doesn't have to be a podcaster just other people in your space. The relationships that you have can take you forward better than any sort of algorithm in my opinion. And if you have an expert and industry leader on your show, you spark a relationship with them there, you continue to serve them. There's a lot of ways that they can serve you as well over time. Obviously, if you have another podcaster on your show, if you coordinate something like a same-day collaboration, then you can see a lot more rapid growth in that regard. One of my favorite strategies is actually interviewing the founders of communities on your show, like think of a Facebook group in your space. Those people who manage those communities that are working so hard to keep those people together, don't often get a lot of reward or love back in return. And so if you can bring them on your show and paint them as the hero of the story, just like Donald Miller would tell you from story brand, what are the chances that they are going to go and then share that episode to their community? This is the difference between you coming into a community and trying to just like air horn your podcast in front of everybody and then you essentially are just spamming. Nobody wants you there versus the literal creator of that community saying, hey guys, you got to listen to this show because again, you've made them look good and they don't often get a chance to do that. And so now not only is your show in front of people who are literally in your audience who have yet to discover you but should discover you, you're also getting the endorsement from people who have already grown that trust. And so you can fast forward that success. A strategy alone has helped thousands of my own students grow their show and they're just using just that strategy alone. So again, relationships serving other people, they will serve you back in some way, shape or form. It doesn't necessarily mean they're always going to legitimately link it directly to your show. But you never know, they might actually have a relationship with somebody who could do that or get to a connection with somebody who has a big network of people who can then be guests on your show or who can push your show out for you. You had mentioned YouTube. We're not quite in my opinion to the point where I feel every audio podcast needs a video podcast but it's definitely a lot further along than it was two years ago when I was actually recommending to not have a video podcast because podcast listeners were just not on YouTube but thanks to people like Joe Rogan and many of the other podcasts that have showed up on the platform. People are starting to fall into that behavior of going to YouTube to absorb podcast information, whether it's just being played in the background or there is something interesting and visual to look at. If there is room in your life, if there is bandwidth and or you have a team to help you, then yeah, definitely do it. But if you know that you're already strapped for time, don't force it. I think we tend to be surprised that how much time and energy and kind of money it takes to do YouTube right? Or at least to think you need that much time energy and money to do YouTube right? Like folks see us with the fancy studios and having a team that sort of thing. So someone who is strapped for time. What they're thinking right now is they hear you say that. Is they're like, okay, so is he saying that like I need to inevitably be on YouTube or is it possible for somebody to never be on YouTube and continue to have a successful audio show? We'll get back to the show in just a moment. But first a quick question. Are you pouring your heart into your podcast but not seeing the growth or engagement that you hoped for? Well, imagine if there was a way to not only grow your podcast audience but also create better content more efficiently and to unlock the secrets to transforming listeners into high-ticket buyers. Well, that's exactly why I put together the 12 days of podcast growth email course. It's completely free and it's packed with valuable insights including how to grow your audience in 2024, how to make captivating content in less time, a 90 second hack that added 20,000 listeners for another podcast or in just three months. And yes, the strategies that we use to drive over 2.5 million in sales just from our podcast audience. This email course is going to be your golden ticket to elevating your podcast game. You're going to receive daily insights and actionable tips straight to your inbox for 12 days, giving you the tools you need to achieve remarkable growth. So if you're ready to take your podcast game to the next level, head over to 12daysofpodcastgrowth.com or just click the link in the description to sign up for the 12 days of podcast growth email course. Alright, that's it. Let's get back to the episode. Is it possible for somebody to never be on YouTube and continue to have a successful audio show? Most podcasts don't have a corresponding video show and many of them are incredibly successful and many of them would rather not have a video podcast because things are a lot easier when it's just audio only. And no, you don't have to have a video podcast, but again, there is opportunity for growth there and that is one avenue that you could use for growth. Should you want to go down that route? And it also doesn't mean you need a studio like you see with those other podcasters Colin and Samir have built a literal studio to film their video podcast, you know, MKBHD has a video podcast now and Joe Rogan, of course, like I said earlier in several others. But you could check out a couple different versions of video podcasts that may be a lot cheaper and may be more doable. I mentioned Remete, he's a good example, he has a video podcast where he's still in his home. His guests are in their home, but the way that it's set up is much better in terms of just it's not just a side by side screen. There's a little bit more movement, there's some text, there's some setup and a hook in the beginning and then just even the template that he uses to display the different videos and how they interact with each other is really good and just takes a little bit of additional thought and editing, but it can be done from the comfort of your own home. You don't even need to fly people in or be in person with them. And then there's another podcast called Tesla Daily, I'm a big Tesla fan by Rob, Rob from Tesla Daily. He has an audio first to show, but he takes that podcast, which is audio first and then creates a video out of it using B-roll. And luckily for him and for the other video creators in the space, Tesla is totally okay with using B-roll and other footage, they encourage that. Not all companies are that friendly with the B-roll, but he takes his audio podcast, puts B-roll, adds some text, some charts and other things, you know the stock markets chart for the day, some B-roll of the new cyber truck coming out of the garage, all this kind of stuff. And he actually has more listeners slash viewers on YouTube because there's a giant YouTube Tesla community that has found him and kind of shares him around. So that's an option, his face isn't even on camera, ever, unless he's going live, so that's a possibility too. Yeah, I think what I'd love to hear is just from kind of being an online creator for so long, as I said, I've been out for five years, so I feel like I've just kind of seen what it's like when things kind of cycle in and out of being info. I feel like people look at podcasts a little differently now than they did in 2015, 2018 when it was just like a gold rush for podcasting, that's cooled off a little bit. Right now there's all this pressure to be on short from video, get on YouTube, and I'm like, this is probably always the case, right, that there's this one thing that everyone's like rushing towards. And so first of all, is that true when your experience having been at this longer? Yeah, I mean, there's always new technology, there's always new rushes. I mean, recently we saw the rush for people to go on threads. Yeah, my Instagram and Facebook and meta or whatever, and it's like for three weeks, that was like, wow, that's like everything everybody's there. And then it's like, okay, well, I got my username and now it's like, I haven't even logged in for a while. So you're always going to see that. There's always the sort of mom mentality of this is the new thing. And we always are looking for something new that could hopefully solve all of our problems or give us the one avenue that can become our growth avenue. And in many cases, some people do see those new opportunities and then do well on them, right. It can be worth experimenting if you allow yourself time to do that without budding into or sort of melting into the other parts of your life that you know you should need to do or the other responsibilities that you have. So I'm totally okay with experimentation and reserving 10% of your time, 20% of your time to experiment on new things. But the 80% of your time still needs to be dedicated to the things that you know works and the things that are your sort of bread and butter, if you will. That being said, there are some things that will never change the idea that it's the human on the other end of those platforms. No matter what that platform looks like, whether it's email or threads or LinkedIn or short from video or long form video, there's always going to be a human watching on the other end. And it is what is valuable to them on that platform and can you utilize the behavior consumption patterns on that platform to best get your message out there and then help those people, right. So every platform has a different sort of culture and a way to go about serving those audiences that are there. But when you go in and you go deep and you kind of investigate, it really all comes down to the human need and the want of belonging or the idea of feeling heard. And so no matter what you got to know who it is that you're serving, what language are they using and what stories can you tell that show transformation that either inspire entertain, provide the right information or infotainment, if you will. So again, like five years from now, who knows what is even going to be here. But even more so important will be that human touch and that human element. And this is why I'm very, very much focusing on building communities now where there is human to human interaction, not just me to my community, my community to me, but like people to each other within the community, because that's never going to change. The technology is just the sort of map on top that will change how those interactions happen, but the interactions are still going to happen. And especially with AI coming and how much even more readily available information is and how many more things are just kind of getting into the hands of AI, the human elements just going to stand out even more and be more craved. Yeah, you touched on a distinction that you made in super fans and is something that just absolutely hit home for me and it's something that I've shamelessly shared with my clients, like just like you got to read this chapter of the book. And it's the one about learning the lyrics. Now how this relates to podcasting is that what I found worked one on one with like 450 ish podcasters over the past three or four years. And a lot of times a podcaster has a really, really specific like value proposition, they've got really specific experience or specific knowledge or maybe a specific niche that they're serving. But either a they don't see that and they don't like the branding of their show is like rather vague like they're like, oh, the show that'll change your life. But really like if you dig into it, they like are really good at helping like nurses or something like that. Or they're super super resistant to niching down and not saying this show is for everybody and I like anything that you want to talk about. We're going to talk about it here. So the one distinction that seems to have been the most powerful for me to get people to see like if you get specific to what your audience is thinking, what was they using. Oh my gosh, like you're going to have such residents. So can you first for those who haven't heard me talk about learned lyrics, explain what that distinction is. And then maybe comment on if a podcaster is resistant to doing that, you know, why it might be important. Yeah, this comes from a story about my wife. In fact, she's a huge fan of the Backstreet Boys. And when I asked her like, how did you even grow to love this band? I mean, she loves this band. Like I have to, you know, fight for time against the boys or her boys as she calls them. Anyway, and I'm an insect fan. So I don't know how we ended up together. No, she mentioned that when she was 16, she had gone through a terrible breakup with her boyfriend in high school at the time. And there was no Spotify. There was no iPods or anything at the time. It was just what was on the radio. And when she was in her bed after that sort of tragic breakup, she heard a song on the radio that she said she'd heard over and over again, but she never really paid attention. But this time it was different because every word in this song was literally describing what she was going through in that moment and that song was quit playing games with my heart by the Backstreet Boys. And if you go and read those lyrics, you can imagine how like a 60-year-old going through a breakup would resonate with that song. And that's what triggered everything for her. That's what got her to buy the album. That's what got her to get tickets and all this stuff. And now she's like going to VIP events with them and all this kind of stuff. So it all happened because the lyrics were exactly what she was going through. And so we as creators, especially as podcasters, I mean, we have words, words are power. But what words you choose to use when describing something, especially when you're describing a scenario or a problem or a challenge that your target audience has and lives through, that matchup is going to be very, very important. It's the difference between you listening to a lecture from somebody who's been in this space for 40 years, but they're just so far ahead as a PhD master that it's just not even hitting home for you versus, you know, the student next to you in that lecture who had just finished studying who can tell you better what those things are about or how this thing matters because you're both students, for example. So for us, I mean, it's the difference between if you had a podcast, it was about running, right? That is an inch. It's a running podcast, right? And that's cool. Runners run and, you know, there are certain things that runners of all levels and of all ages have to go through. But imagine the difference of the words that you'd say about the challenges that a runner would have on your running show versus a show that you have that's specifically for men over 50 running your first marathon, right? That is a niche and a niche, right? It's not just runners. It's men, but it's also men who are over 50, but it's also men who are over 50 who are running their very first marathon, right? And as I often say, their riches are in the niches. Now I know a lot of you are thinking that's too niche, like there's only so many of those people that I can serve, like I have information that can help men and women, I have information that can help people of all ages. Why wouldn't I do that? Because you will blend in with everybody else who's also talking about those same things. You will not be quickly seen and that's the idea here. You want to quickly have a person resonate with what you're saying and the way to do that is to niche down. It doesn't mean you're going to stay in that niche forever, although with really funny about this exercise is when I encourage my students to niche down and then they do they end up staying in that niche, even though they know they want to grow out of it. They can't imagine not being the go to person at space anymore. And guess what? You create deeper relationships with your audience. You become more of a resource and even your competitor, your quote unquote competitors will invite you on their podcast because you have a specialization, right? So now in your show, you're talking to men who have cramps, lower back pains, you are running your first marathon, you got to worry about your knees. So here are some products that I've partnered with who specifically have built things that help older men because we older men have these issues that nobody else has and we're going to talk about them together. This is the safe space to talk about them where you can feel welcome because guess what? We're all feeling the pains, right? Maybe the podcast is called like pain free running for oldies or something like, I don't know, right? But you see how like now the language becomes much more resonant with those people when a person even just sees the title of an episode or even the title of the podcast or a listen to the first couple minutes of a show they're going to go. I finally found the show that is specifically for me and guess what? In my running club here at home, this is all hypothetical because you know, I'm not 50. I'm 40, but I'm still good. I see the power factor and everything. Anyway, it's like I'm with my running friends and I'm going to go, hey, guys, you got to listen to this podcast because I mean he's speaking to us. Here's an episode. Joe, you have knee pain. Listen to episode three was all about knee pain. I listened to it to help me out. You got to check them out. And now he's spreading and he's spreading and he's spreading and now all of a sudden you're on stage at the retiree house event for finances because somebody who worked at that conference knows that you can serve those people by keeping them physically fit. You know, it's like these opportunities will happen when you niche down that you never even thought possible. It doesn't mean you're going to stick in that niche forever, but because you have that specialty, you're going to be seen more of as a resource, right? It's it's if you're a chef. Yes, you have a knife that can do everything. But if I'm going to be flaying a fish, I want my filet knife. It's going to allow me to do this better and the foods can be easier to cook and taste better to you. Yeah. And it seems to me like if like when I have these conversations with podcasters and their resisting niche down because they want to impact, you know, as many people as they possibly can and they want to talk about finance and success and all these different things. One of the things that I point to is it seems to me anyway that a lot of the people who do have massive audiences and speak broadly at first had a really specific audience like Lewis House for like five years talked about how to grow your LinkedIn like crazy specific, right? Like and your name and Harmosey was gyms for six years and the list goes on and on. So what I don't know though what I'm not sure about though is like, do you think that those folks are able to speak so broadly because at first they did focus on a niche or is this just kind of a coincidence? No, not a coincidence. Peter McKinnon is another example of photography even sharing like his light room, lux settings and stuff on his on his show on YouTube. And now literally he could talk about anything anything he wants and he's going to have people follow because he was able to build an audience about something specific. And then he decided that he just wanted to, you know, people enjoyed his personality and no matter what he did, he knew he was going to take now there are people who don't follow him anymore because they followed him for those photography things. But there are many, many more people now that fall in because he's been able to almost earn the right to speak more broadly. Right, he's almost proven himself and you just need a little bit of a base set of an audience before you can then potentially jump in an experimental other things. And this is the cool thing about podcasting and YouTube is once you build that audience, you can take an episode and try something maybe you have a running podcast but guess what we have a special guest today who's also a runner. So there's a connection but he's in the finance world and we're going to talk about finances today and you can look at the data and you can talk to your community and say did you enjoy having somebody from the outside come in. If yes, awesome, let's experiment and you know, do this a little bit more if not. Okay, maybe that needs to be a separate show or just I don't I don't do that anymore. You know, same thing with YouTube, you can use some time to experiment and try and see what new playlists or new buckets that you can create content for. But start niche, the riches are in the niches. I know it's pronounced niches, but the doesn't rhyme as well. I got to think that there's also an element of if you go hard and really serve a niche niche, sorry, you develop skills, right? You develop the skills of how to capture attention, how to reward attention. And I think of like the crazy success that you've had with deep pocket monster since starting it just like three years ago. I got to think that you were able to parlay, you know, the skills that you've been building serving SPI for years into that to have some quick success. Do you think that's that play here too? 100% you know, a lot of people see the deep pocket monster YouTube channel, which is a channel about collecting Pokemon cards. We're about almost three years into it. We're approaching 750,000 subscribers. It's generating mid five figures a month through sponsorships and YouTube ads. It's actually more profitable than SPI to be honest because it's a lot more lean, which is crazy, right? And now I'm an advisor to some companies in that space, Pokemon International and I have a relationship together. They send me things they invite me out to Japan. It's crazy and it's it's brand new. A lot of people see that and they go, wow, Pat, that's like, you're an overnight success. That's crazy. And I say, I started on YouTube in 2009, right? I just so happened to create the Pokemon channel in year 13 or year 11 or whatever it was. All the mistakes I made, all the reps put in. I'm able to now create this new thing with all of that in mind. I actually didn't start from scratch. And yes, the audience started from scratch. I didn't bring any of my SPI audience over there. That would actually be not a good thing to do on YouTube specifically, but I didn't start from scratch when it came to how I knew YouTube works as far as titles and thumbnails. How to tell a story, how to share information in an entertaining fashion, and how to film just really good cinematography. So I was able to bring those things and those what I had believed to be unfair advantage is just because I've had that much more time doing that kind of thing. And now what's really interesting is a lot of the creators in the Pokemon space are coming to me and asking, hey, Pat, can you help me with my videos? Can you give me some business advice? And it's really cool to see that now I have SPI resource for people in the Pokemon space now. A lot of my students in some of my courses happen to be people who found me on the Pokemon side of things now, which is really cool. So yeah, reps, reps, reps. I interviewed MKBHD on the SPI podcast and he said something very profound. He said his first 100 videos were for less than 100 subscribers. They were for nobody. But through that, he learned how to film. He learned how to do reviews through that a couple of those videos did very well. And so he decided to lean into them. But now he's at almost 20 million subscribers. And it took all those reps to figure out just what worked for him and what his voice was and what people appreciated. And now he's expanded, right? He's got a show about cars. He does retro gaming reviews and all those kinds of things. He started out as a tech reviewer and he still is. But he's been able to branch out as well. Funny. I interviewed JLD a couple of weeks ago. And I think for the entire 15 minutes, he just said the word reps the whole time. I was like, reps, reps, reps, reps. Like, yes, let's get those reps in fire nation. Yes. Another person that we had on the show recently, Amy Porterfield, I asked her about how she spent 15 years just going hard on helping people launch digital courses. And it's just like to me, it sounds exhausting to talk about the same thing for so long. And what she said is like, she's like, I look for novelty in just like finding new ways to do the launch. Like this fall I'm launching it with one of those crazy like Tony Robbins dome room things. And so that's going to be fun for me. And so that was interesting to me because for me, I like hear some creators talk about reps focus. Stay focused. Don't chase shiny objects. And it's like stay focused on your thing. And especially if you ever listen to harmosy, like he goes so extreme with the things that he talks about or is like just stay focused on it. But then I'm like, well, although I've heard Pat talk about scratching the itch, right? And like when you have meaning like if you have a creative itch, it's a good thing to scratch it. And then in particular, the program monsters totally different from SPI. So my question for you is, is that something that you've had to manage throughout the years because both things are true as creators, we have an itch to do things that are completely different than are saying quote unquote. But it's also true is that you got to stick with your thing if you want it to be a thing. So first question is like, how do you manage that dichotomy? For me, it's what I like to call a 20% itch rule. A lot of this what we're talking about right now is going to be in my new and upcoming book. I'm actually writing a book that's going to be in the next year to my first traditionally published book, which should be fun. It's been an interesting ride for sure. But the 20% itch rule is allowing yourself 20% of your time to scratch that creative itch and giving yourself permission to do that and knowing that whatever you end up trying could completely fail. And that's okay because you've protected the 80% the things that you are focusing on right there is a book called the one thing by Gary Keller and J. Papstana kind of went wild in the entrepreneurial space for wild still is a great book. And in there they go that Alex her mostly route which is just focus on one thing like if all your energy is on one thing it'll be obviously better because you're not distracted and there's no other things pulling at you. But at the same time it's like most of us who are creators especially online now it's like we can't just do one thing because we have these other urges and these other needs and we want to be creative and we often lose a lot of that when we go so deep into something and start building a machine out of it right. So this is kind of the best of both worlds it allows you to try and experiment and play but also know that you're still dedicated to this one thing. So it's the one thing at a time and an experimental thing that you're okay playing within for me in 2017 to 2019 that was the switch pod and invention that my videographer and I created this little tripod and that went wild and did very well on Kickstarter we made about a half million dollars in the 60 days with that and it's still selling today. However that's now more automated I put my time to that that was a fun experiment I got to play I got to try a physical product which is hard. And then from 2021 to 2023 or currently my 20% of my time was dedicated to deep pocket monster and starting this collection channel largely based off my kids and I finding the love of Pokemon in 2020 during the pandemic. So I've been able to play an experiment yet still grow SPI at the same time because those those things were in place and now we're at a point where it's like okay wow okay deep pocket monsters doing really really well there's a lot of opportunities there. Let's hire some more amazing people and SPI so that I can buy back more time to put into this new thing that is actually going to be more than just kind of a 20% of time thing I see in my future. It's actually been really fun to have that new creative thing that can focus on in the beauty of this just for me in particular is like they do cross over in a way right. Deep pocket monster is an amazing case study for still being able to succeed brand new on YouTube today which helps with our YouTube from scratch course that's in our SPI community right and so it's really fun and especially with community building we have a large community of about 4,500, 5,000 people in the deep pocket monster community each paying about $3 a month to be a part of the community on. YouTube so it is profitable is doing well but it is also allowed me to play and have fun and experiment without the worry of of everything else kind of falling apart because that other stuff is still protected and it's still running. Yeah awesome that you've been so generous in the last couple minutes here it wouldn't be an episode of growth show if we didn't talk tactics what's working today for podcasting so you mentioned YouTube what's working right now particularly well for the SPI podcast in terms of getting new listeners to the show. Or I suppose like when you have a show that's been around for so long you have such deep penetration in the market you probably have to think about getting people back to the show that's my question. Do you have to approach growth differently when you have really strong market penetration people might have already heard of SPI they might not be listening right now is it a part of your strategy at all to kind of bring people back into the fold. Yeah the growth strategy change over time because what got you here won't get you there right what got you here won't get you there. There's a few things that work number one seeing what the most popular episodes were of the last couple years and bringing either those guests back or at least the topic back. And then either going further with it or the next step or another angle or maybe a conflicting angle to have a discussion about that with somebody number two and this is again where I'm working toward right now I haven't nailed yet but having a little bit more controversy on the show not controversy like we're fighting each other but just. An opposing viewpoint and somebody who again is a people please are like that scares me a little bit but that's the world I'm looking toward to try to bring guests on who have opposing views so we can have a discussion in a place for. People to listen and form their own opinions based on you know to opposing sides for example yeah and the number three I mentioned a strategy earlier about interviewing form owners or group owners that still continues to be an incredible strategy that works really really well. You can create roundup episodes where you feature an answer from maybe ten different communities all in one episode like what's the best tip you have for a beginner. For blank whatever that topic is go to ten different communities bring those founders into the show you can use a tool like speak pipe to just literally collect their voicemail answer versus trying to get on like Riverside or. Squad cast or whatever for them so it's easy and then you can put that all into one episode now becomes a roundup episode of a collection of amazing viewpoints from ten different community owners and now that becomes a very valuable episode that is now given you ten ten starts of relationships that you can then bring on and then if maybe one or two of those answers are incredible you can then invite them on to be sort of a single episode and go from there now you are. For penetrating those communities by providing a ton of value to that community owner and the number four what's working YouTube can work to although we even at SPI haven't really gone deep with that yet either. But the thing that has worked and the most recent example of podcast growth was an actual collaboration that we did I had a person on my show Eric partaker he was former founder of Skype or an early person that Skype before it got sold to Microsoft. And he exited that he has a coaching business as well and he has a podcast so I was a guest on his podcast the same day that he was a guest on my show and on top of that we were also promoting each other's email lists on the same day actually we sent emails to our email list to also promote each other's email list and this is provided the most email list growth that we've had pretty much all year because of that direct collaboration so we're going to be doing more of that now. So that it's not just like one side of each time it's we can both help each other grow in the space because we have audiences that would benefit from each other's stuff. And then the thing is like people who listen to my show want to listen to me as a guest on his show so he's getting a lot of love and vice versa. And we're both able to grow our email list like I said to you which is important for for for communication so I would say that strategy is probably one that we're going to be focusing on a lot in 2024. That is going to do it for this episode of grow the show now I have a quick favor to ask you if you've ever gotten any value from this podcast and you haven't already please leave us a five star rating and if you're feeling generous a review in the app that you're using to hear my voice right now it just takes a couple seconds but it really goes a long way in helping us to share even more valuable growth and monetization tactics here on the show because it helps us land bigger guests and it helps show the world that what we're doing here is actually valuable. So once again if you've ever gotten any value from the show and you haven't already please just take a moment leave us a five star rating maybe a brief review on what type of value you've gotten and I will be eternally grateful. This episode was produced by me with post production by podcast boutique and if you want your show to be post produced with quality really freaking fast and if you want to save yourself and your team tons of time working on your podcast. You should chat with podcast boutique just head to podcast boutique.com or click the link in the show notes and set up time with them because I spent no time editing this episode and neither should you. Alright that's going to do it for grow the show my name is Kevin Schmittlin I'll see you next time.