175 | Grow Your Show Just Like A Top 100 Podcast, with Chris Jordan

Chris Jordan, welcome to Grow the Show, so excited for you to share with us today the lessons that you learned helping to grow and produce a podcast into the top 100 charts over a few years. But before we get into the actual tactics and lessons that you learned, can you give us just a little bit of background on what show you worked on and the role that you had? So the most notable shows that I've worked on would be the School of Greatness hosted by Lewis House, one of the top personal development thought leaders in the space. And then during my time working there, I also launched a secondary show called The Daily Motivation, which we also got to over a million downloads within a few months and was also a top 100 podcast. So my role working there was to really take everything from the pre-production phase all the way to the distribution phase and support every part of the process along the way to make sure that we were growing that show that we were optimizing it for all the different platforms that we were being on and really just intentionally trying to deepen the relationship with such a large audience. So a lot of us podcasters look up to shows like Lewis's and several of the other shows that are in the top 100 charts and from the outside looking in, we try to break down what they're doing and what works and like how they do what they do. So let's start by talking a little bit maybe about misconceptions that we might have about shows that are at that level. So when I say that, what comes to mind for you? Podcasts early on in their journeys will look at the people who are at the top and they will say like, why should I start? I can never be everywhere all at once like they are, they are just really good at what they do. They crack the code. The misconception is that a lot of these people that are really at the top in the game, millions of listeners, millions of followers, they have teams, they have teams that that help them. I'm here now sharing my experience of truly like pre-producing and just producing every part of a podcast and that serves those people at the top because that allows them to show up and be the talent to do the great interviews, to do the great solo episodes and really just teach what they are known for and not have to worry about every part of the process, but I think where that hurts people is that they will say, well, this big person is doing this. I can never do that so why should I even start? The most important thing is most of these people, if you take someone like Louishausen for example, he had been doing the podcasting for over 10 years, like when I joined I think it was year eight and he started out just like everybody else one episode at a time, you know, sharing it to one person at a time, making small improvements to the point where he could then afford to have a team and then that grows and that grows over time and every big thought leader has a team helping them. So I don't think it's healthy to compare yourself to where they are and make that be a reason why I'm just, it's not worth starting my podcast because all those people that you're saying that you're comparing yourself to, if they would have said that when they started then they would have never got to the point now where you're looking at them and saying the exact same thing. Right. On the flip side of that, because what you're saying there is, you know, it can be really intimidating to look at these folks that are 10 to 15 years in, got huge teams behind them, have massive distribution and get discouraged. I see a lot of podcasters on the flip side though who see that it's super encouraging and inspiring and they try to do today what those people are doing now and may not see what you said where like they've got a team of like 10 behind them and all that stuff. So what are some of the things that, you know, shows like Louis's that are at that level are doing that you're seeing earlier podcasters trying to do where maybe it's not time to do that yet. The biggest thing that I know you teach on this and we've talked about it is people try to do too many things at once and so what happens is they spread themselves thin and that leads to feeling, you know, discouraged, feeling frustrated with like I'm putting in all this work and all of this energy but what's typically happening is they are, they're trying to post on X and threads and Instagram, Facebook and YouTube and everything all at once just by themselves and I fall under that trap too and I'm like I can do it and then you try to and it's just like it's hard to be sustainable and so I feel like the people that I've spoken with and I know that you've had on the podcast, I feel like they're trying to true advice is going deep on just one platform, maybe two but until then like don't worry about being on seven or eight platforms because the people that you see that are have people doing it for them and so really just taking that way off of you I think can be really helpful because I think like if you can go deep on the platforms that excite you the most in the beginning, your audience will grow faster, your downloads will grow faster, your trust with that audience that, you know, if you're doing better on Instagram than on X, it's like just go deep on Instagram with your podcast like promoting it and you know participating as you say for like a quarter and see how that works instead of trying to post on seven of them and you're getting just minimal reach on them because you don't have the time to like stay up to date with the trends that happen to be on those platforms because if you try to see it with the trends on eight different platforms, I don't think you're sleeping. Yeah. No, no, you're not. Or you are and you're just feeling bad about the fact that you're not getting any progress anywhere. So, okay, let's keep flipping things over and say because I've heard online influencers say all the time that the people who are truly advanced are the ones who just, they never not do the basics, right? They share the ones that are consistent, they are doing the basic things that we tend to overlook in favor of hacks all the time. So kind of in that, in the spirit of that, we've talked about the things that the big time shows are doing that smaller shows don't necessarily need to do right now. What are the things that you guys always did that's you see smaller shows sometimes skipping? What's interesting is like even at shows at that level, it is going back to the basics a lot of the times of the misconception here is that some people say like, yeah, it's easy for people with large audiences because everyone's going to pay attention and love them. And that's not always true. It is revisiting the basics a lot of the times of, is this episode interesting? Is this episode good? Is the title interesting enough to get people to click on it? Yes. There's this person with a large audience who you assume everybody's listening, but think about your listening experience. Are you listening to, I mean, there's so many big shows in the world and I don't think anyone here is able to listen to all of them again, if you are, you're not sleeping, it's great. But in general, like you're not listening to every single episode. And so even shows at a bigger level still have to win the attention. And so to do that, you go back to the basics of is the title interesting, you know, with the podcast being also on YouTube, is this thumbnail interesting and is it making people stop everything they're doing and check out this episode. And then once you get into the episode, you know, is it optimized for retention? Are people going to want to listen to this hour long episode, sometimes two hour long episode? And if the answer is no, then we see that in the data and we would go back next time we tried that, we would cut out a lot more and try to optimize for retention. It is always those basics that help you in the beginning. And then even as you get bigger, when you think like, oh, we don't have to rely on them, I found that that's wrong. And that actually surprised me because I had that assumption as well, but I think it's actually encouraging to know like, we're all playing the same game. We're all focusing, well, we all should be focusing on those basics and never assuming that we're going to have this big audience or anything like that if we're not hitting those foundational pieces to win someone's attention. Do you have any examples of a time where you thought that a show or an episode was going to get tons of reach, tons of attention and it didn't and you found out it was because of what you just described. Yes. So, I think that this is a mistake that a lot of people have and we've talked to many people that run through this where they have a guest on their show and they're super excited. Like, this is going to crush and then the episode comes out and then their feedback is, it just didn't do as well as I thought and I think that the issue there is we have this assumption that, oh, this person is famous and huge, everyone's going to listen to this. This is a really big guest, but the title isn't optimized to win the attention, you know, maybe the first half of the interview like really isn't all that interesting, but as the host, people assume like, people love this person so they'll listen to anything and that's not true. And even on shows at top levels, what surprised me the most was a lot of times celebrities actually were not the highest performing episodes. It was with, you know, therapist or psychologist or doctors and all of these people who are giving, you know, a little bit more like practical advice. However, you know, I'm on an episode producing with, you know, an A-list celebrity and I'm drinking now and I'm super excited to put it out, but no one's really been using them on podcasts and the topics, you know, weren't really relatable to as many people and it did do well. It was like one of our lowest performing episodes and I've seen that both on top shows and I've, you know, heard feedback a lot from other podcasters as well. And so I think that just goes back to the basics. It's like, you got to win the attention and big names are not always the solution for that. It reminds me so much of my days doing the Philly Who podcast because it was definitely on a smaller scale where we were just talking about, you know, people who were either Philly known or Philly not known. But I can remember, and this was my, my first two years as a podcaster as a content creator. And I can remember feeling the exact same way where I would get a big name and I'd be like, oh, this is going to be it. This is going to be where the show takes off, it blows up. And then like, I would interview the person and I don't know, they just like, it wasn't as good. They weren't like really telling much of a story. They, it just, it wasn't that great. But nonetheless, I was like, oh, but still we got this great. I think it would be like a professional football player or something and I'd be like, we got this great name. This is going to be great. Put it out there and it would flop. And then on the flip side, I would be featuring somebody on my show who I knew was not well known and that episode would crush. And like what I took away from that was two things. Number one, when I had the celebrity to your point, I would work less hard to make the episode good because I thought the person's name would just carry it. And then the opposite of that, the flip side of that, if I had somebody that I knew people didn't know, I would work harder to make sure that I like made it clear to everybody. You got to hear this. This is why, you know, this episode is going to be so good. And then they would perform better because I did the job of, you know, framing them up and sharing why they're good and all that stuff. So it's, it's just so funny to say that because that just, or it rhymes exactly with what I experienced with Philly Ho, which is a tiny, tiny show and you're talking about the same exact impact on one of the biggest shows around. So given that, like the next thing, the thing about is once you learn that lesson, I imagine you see that, you see, oh, celebrities aren't doing, you know, bringing in as much attention as I thought. Does that change at all the way that you target which guests to invite or which episodes to make? Yes, but I think it depends on your strategy. And this has been a really big unlock for me that I think could help a lot of podcasters is to me, I think there's different success metrics. And be curious on your take on this as well with your podcast. So one success metric, sure, of course, is downloads. How many people are checking this out? How many people are paying attention? And that's a great success metric. However, the other success metric that I think is really where podcast has given people more opportunity than any other medium is building a relationship with someone that you otherwise wouldn't have the opportunity to probably have an hour of their time to speak to. And with that said, that's where, you know, there's these episodes that we would produce that was with again, I'm talking like really big celebrities and really important, powerful people in certain industries. And yes, they wouldn't always do the best on the, you know, in terms of the downloads and the views, but that relationship carried a lot of weight for future things that the host that I would be working with would act on later on. And so I think that that is another important success metric that you just have to know what game you're playing in that moment. Well, that's what we did. There was sometimes where it was like this episode might not do well, but I think if you build a really good relationship with this person, it will lead, you know, you talk about every time you get a certain person and they're connected to someone else and they can say, hey, I went on the show, I loved them. They'll be more likely to come on your show as well. And so that was where we just determined like, okay, are we going for views here or are we going for building the relationship? And maybe the views would be there. Like there always is some exceptions to the rule for sure, but we would kind of know, okay, which success metric are we going for? And then we would just try to balance, you know, because we don't want downloads so I can be low. You never want that. You always want them to, you know, ideally be climbing. But if there's some people who are like, I don't think this will get that many downloads. But I really want to know them because for whatever reasons, it's worth it. Yeah. So what I'm hearing you say there basically is even if you know that an episode is not going to get as much attention, it still could be valuable to have that person on the show, if anything, for to have that person in your network, exactly. Got it. Funny to say that literally two hours ago, I heard from somebody that I interviewed on Philly, who was a, he's a cheese steak mogul in Philadelphia. And then we have those in Philly, like huge, huge name, one of the biggest cheese steak chains, which is funny because if you ever been to Philly, they're all like basic male first names. It's chinos, it's pads. So one of those guys texted me this morning, I haven't heard from them in years and he said, hey, Kevin, can you give me a call? I'm just like, what? I interviewed him four years ago on the podcast and somehow, I don't know, he wants something for me. And it's just a testament to do an interview, put an episode out. You just never know what's going to happen in the future. Yeah. Okay. So let's say you do have an episode of the show that does really well, whether or not it's a celebrity, you put it out there. It crushes, right? It gets tons of attention. You maybe hit a new downloads record or a new retention record. What do you do after that? What lessons do you take away from an episode that does really well? So the biggest thing is like being able to make decisions for your show based on data is the easiest way to continue to get more wins. A really great example of that is one episode I had produced for the School of Greatness. We did an episode that was, it was like the seven ways that wealthy people think that poor people don't. It was something around the lines of that. And that video was actually based on a video on another channel that was the three ways that rich people think that poor people don't. And then it done really, really well over there and we realized we could definitely make an episode where, and this was actually a mashup episode where we took like all of these different money experts and we put them into seven different sections. And that video crushed and we had seen the other one, the three ways do really well. So again, we looked at that and were like, okay, well, we could talk on that and give our own perspectives. And we just borrowed the idea, but it's all original content. And so that episode was the seven ways. That did really well over a million views. So what we thought to do next was, okay, people really love this topic. Let's give them more. And so we followed that up with the ten ways. And then it was all different, like ten different perspectives. Again, it wasn't like the same seven and we added three. We just happened to go through and find ten perspectives. That did well. A thousand ways. Yeah, we could eventually get to a thousand. We followed it up with, I believe, like fifteen ways. And that's where, okay, we were like, okay, we hit the limit with this for right now. But it worked for a long time. And the lesson here is you're looking for themes that work within the niche of your show. That people are paying attention to. And then you're looking for ways, okay, how can I not repeat the exact same thing, but you're repeating the theme, right? People loved three ways to learn how to be rich. So they were definitely more inclined to learn seven ways. And then they were open to learning the ten ways. And then open to learning the fifteen ways. You know, that was repeatable. The other theme that would work really, really well for us. And you've probably seen this a lot in the personal development space. Is this keyword of unlocking the power of your mind is like a very popular mindset focused type interview? And so what I saw happen was, you know, we would have a big guest on like, Joe Dispensum might be a name that a lot of people could be aware of. And that title for him pretty much any time it was posted, we get millions of views. Wow. So we would have them on. Someone like Joe Dispensum would have this episode somewhere on YouTube with the titles unlocked the power of your mind. And we saw that and we said, okay, let's take that has him on our show and also talk about that our own perspective unique questions, but that's the theme. And that did really, really well from there. The data point that we looked at was like, okay, yes, in that moment, people really love Joe Dispensum. It's a big name and that's a big theme. So that's a win, win right there, but we didn't want to, you can't have the same person on every single episode or people will just get sick of it. So what we thought to do was like, okay, well, what are other people in the mindset realm that we could have on and talk about that theme? And we would test it with neuroscientists or therapists. And what happened is we realized that yes, like that Joe Dispensum example is a really big win win of big name and a proven theme, but people were actually more willing to check out these interviews with neuroscientists that hadn't really been popular yet because we used that, you know, unlocked the power of your mind title and put it with them and people were more willing to click on it. And so then we were actually able to, again, we didn't repeat the same interviews, but we just had different people give their perspectives on this proven theme and we were able to get some episodes with people that hadn't been popular before, get, you know, hundreds of thousands of views because we looked at the data and said, people love this, you know, this theme of unlocked the power of your mind. So let's add, you know, bring this neuroscientist on, talk about that, that's the title, hundreds of thousands of views. So you use the same title for each one of those episodes. Yeah, whoa, people don't mind. And again, they're not back to back. Then I probably didn't realize, yeah, yeah, they're not back to back. They are, you know, I would say space them out at least a month apart. If not, maybe just every quarter, maybe you're hitting that theme because obviously there comes a point where you would run, you know, it runs its course. But then we would just go and look for like the next proven theme that's doing really, really well and say like, hmm, okay, like, can we create our own version of this and, you know, make that decision based on the data first is like, I had this great episode. I think people will really love it. And there's just kind of like no data to look at to prove that. You're kind of throwing the dart and hoping that you hit, you know, the bull's eye, which is possible. But it's definitely a lot harder to do. Yeah. Does that make sense? 100% and it brings up a mentor of mine recently reminded me data, not drama, data, not drama, wherever possible. Whenever we make decisions based off drama, they're usually the wrong decision. I love that. Now you've mentioned two data sources here. Data source number one is your own episodes that have done well. How can we put a spin on it and do that again? The other one, I think just to call out is you were looking at other like competitor or similar channels to see what what episodes of those podcasts did well. Is that right? That's right. Yeah. Okay. And the data point there to make this really concrete is on YouTube. Because on podcasts, you cannot see people's download numbers. But on YouTube, everything is public. And so most of the time when I'm talking about podcasts, I am just already assuming we're talking about both like it's on audio and there's a video version that goes on YouTube. Yeah. Because I wish you could see people's download numbers on podcasts. But maybe one day we'll get there, but it's just not public. If you're hearing our voice right now and you don't have your show on YouTube yet, we'll talk a little bit about Chris very much believes that you should consider it. But you can still use this, right? So you can still look at YouTube and look at what podcasts episodes of other shows, especially the big ones because most of the big ones are on YouTube are doing well and still use that information to decide what kind of content you make. And what I love about this distinction you've made, I know even for myself, it's almost like when I have to decide what my future episodes are, every time I'm still doing a blank slate, it's just like, all right, well, what are we going to do this time? But if you just keep in mind, I think the third data point that I would add to that is just your audience and your clients and customers, if you're a business owner, what questions are they asking you? Like what types of problems are you helping them solve? And I think with those three points, let me know if you agree, you'll never run out of ideas for episodes to make that'll get reached. Never, never. Yeah. Cool. So let's actually just go after the elephant in the room, which is YouTube, right? So many podcasters feel the pressure to be on YouTube. Some are excited to do it. Some are not though. So I often on the show say you don't have to do YouTube. It's not a requirement. It's not something you have to do. Get good at your audio show first. But I know through working with you, getting to know you that you are a very strong proponent of going for YouTube. So I want to give you the floor for a minute. Convince me that I should make my show a YouTube podcast. I think YouTube is the number one opportunity for podcasters. However, before I say that, you just said it. And I want to say that I agree with it that for some people, if making videos and being on camera is really overwhelming, start with your audio show, get comfortable because being comfortable talking to a microphone is a first step. Like everyone's in a different situation. But honestly, as an example, like for my podcast, I even started it as an audio show because I just needed, even though I've produced, you know, episodes that get like that have had millions of views for my own sake of everything. I was like, I'm just going to start with audio. And then I will add a video component later on. And that's fine. However, there has to be a certain point where if you really want your show to grow, you are looking at YouTube. Now the reason why, and I've been kind of just like obsessing about this with you is that the discoverability on podcast platforms is really, really tough to crack. That's why, you know, we talk about the best ways to do that is, you know, trying to drive people from social media or, you know, guessing on other people's shows so that they learn about you and check out your podcasts, it's hard where, and hopefully one day Apple and Spotify and all these people will make our lives easier, but that's just not the case right now. Where YouTube stands out is that YouTube's algorithm works in a way where every time you go on the homepage of YouTube, you are served. I think you immediately see at least like 12 videos. So like three rows of videos. And it's not from people that you're already following most of the time. It is stuff that maybe is similar to things you've watched and they're trying to say, okay, hey, do you like this video as well? Or they're testing from brand new channels like, hey, this person made a video. You're in the testing pool of like the 200 people or whatever to see if people are interested in it. And why I think that is the biggest opportunity is it allows channels with no reach or anything to be put in front of audiences that did not know that they existed, you know, and they could learn by just going on their homepage. And if like we mentioned earlier, you win the attention of the viewer through a really popular, like really intriguing title, not click, baby, but one that just like, dang, that's really interesting. I want to learn the answer to this and a thumbnail that also is eye catching and makes you want to click through. Then you can grow your show a lot faster than on audio because it's really hard for something to randomly be searching on podcast platforms and find your show. Obviously, it does happen. But on YouTube, it's literally just like kind of how that platform works. Yeah. Yeah. And I think of the three, because we talk here at Grow the Show, we talk about the big three ways to get new podcast listeners in 2024, which is getting organic reach on social media number one, number two, guessing on other shows, number three, YouTube. YouTube, I think, is the most difficult one to start with because you have to learn lighting and video and all that stuff. But it's also I think the one that you have the most control over because the organic algorithms on social media seem to change by the day and the podcast guessing you rely on other podcasts to have you on, right? And actually, you know, get listeners to that episode or whatever. But YouTube is the one where you actually are able to engineer growth, you know, like that. Yeah. So I suppose like we don't have to make this a full on YouTube masterclass because you've already done one of those in the Grow the Show Academy. But if you had one piece of advice for a podcast or who's looking to convert their show to YouTube, what would that be? I think that the biggest thing is really don't worry about over obsessing of making it look great. If you haven't been watching this on YouTube, you can look at our set ups and be like, well, you know, Kevin and Chris have, you know, good cameras and mining and all this stuff and it's great. That's not necessary in the beginning. So don't worry about that because that can cost like I think between us, like both of our setups are a thousand plot years probably way more than mine. Like thousands of dollars a year. And so don't worry about that. I just think that the quickest you can get on YouTube will just allow you to to get started. You're going to be bad in the beginning. That's okay. There are times where I still am like, I kind of am I good at this? I don't really know. And then it's still a back and forth every day. But just start. So if you have like a webcam on your, if you have like a MacBook or I mean, if you have your phone, just record whatever you have and get that on YouTube with your podcast and in terms of like editing, right? That's a big issue for a lot of people that are like, well, you know, I don't have like the ability to do fancy edits or anything like that. What we've been talking about, Kevin recently is like, there is a shift in content right now where people don't want flashy. They don't care about things we can throw in your face constantly. And it's almost like to 88 HD to like keep up with. It's like, well, they want conversations like this whole episode we're doing. Here's conversation. And we're just trying to be interesting and be of value and just entertain people. But we're not doing flashy stuff here. Then I've seen episodes where it's not flashy, but it's interesting. And it can still do really, really well. A very concrete example of this for me is I have a channel that sometimes I just like will make random videos where I'll just kind of like train of thought. I saw someone make a video is like the number one skill in the 21st century. Their example in this video is by a guy named Dan Coal. It was, it was about copyrighting. That was his skill. I saw that. I was like, that's a good title. It's doing really, really well. I can see that I'm going to make my own version. Same title, most important skill in the 21st century. My perspective for that one, I just talked about creativity. That video, one shot, no editing whatsoever. But the title I saw was proven to work. It was very interesting. And I wasn't copying him. He talked about copyrighting. I talked about creativity, but that title had worked for him. And so there's on a brand new channel. And that video got over a thousand views, which is not a lot for some people, but for some people, that is a lot. And that video had no editing. And nobody was mad that I took the same title because it was a very different take, completely different. But that was the thing I wanted to try and test to be like, or I can say it where people are like, well, I'm overthinking him. I want, it has to be fancy. I'm like, look at this one. Like this is like a over a thousand people watching me talk for 15 minutes straight with no cuts whatsoever. So don't overthink it. Just get started. And then we can work on the next steps. Yeah. Excellent. Oh, man. I'm getting jacked up that you're here to help with the show YouTube. Because there's just so much more we could be doing there. And I so overthink everything. Like I even overthought this setup. Let's talk, let's move away from YouTube for a second and talk about one of the other two big three, which is podcast casting. You've worked not only on Lewis's show, but you've worked with some other big name creators as well. Can you talk about do you agree like is podcast casting something that you think that podcasters should utilize? 100% and this actually, it was great because when we met, I was like, oh, yeah, I'm so great that like this is one of the core things you teach. Cause I didn't realize it until I saw it happen. And then I was able to like repeat it. So very concrete examples of this is, you know, you take someone like Lewis House and the school of raindrops, everyone knows of that show. They're like, yeah, it's a, you know, big podcast and if you happen to me in the personal development space and it's sort of like a legacy podcast. However, two years ago, Lewis put out a brand new book. And so what happened when people write a book, they want to go and talk about it. So we did a whole podcast tour and what was interesting is all of those dropped around a similar time around the launch of that book because we were trying to create what I like to call a marketable moment, which was like, okay, book is coming out. All these podcasts are dropping like everybody's just hearing about this book. That's the idea. We're all seeing this with different people dropping books every single week. But what was interesting was not only was the book doing well, you know, that book actually went on to be a New York Times best seller that week. That's awesome. What I loved even more was like, wait a second. Our podcast, which was like sitting in the top 100. Sometimes like, you know, at least top 200 suddenly was like top 50 of all podcasts on Apple podcasts. And I was like, interesting. Not only are we selling this book and that's a win, but our podcast has got more listeners and, you know, new downloads this week than any other week recently. And I was like, that's really, really interesting. And so then that's when I took, I was like, we need to apply this actually like every quarter, at least every other quarter to go and do a podcast tour. But then I had the opportunity to repeat it. And so this is where I'm like, what I'm at you is like, this, you're so right. Is I worked with the guy named Dr. Benjamin Hardy. We love his books, really, really great guy. And I worked with him for his book launch to get him on a bunch of other podcasts. Dr. Benjamin Hardy did not have a podcast at the time, but he did have a YouTube channel. And so I was like, I'm going to take all your YouTube content and I'm going to actually repurpose it on a podcast feed because I think people would listen to this on their drives or anything the same way that they would watch it. Like it's equally enjoyable. And so I launched all that before he went on all of those podcasts to promote his book. And then what happened was pretty much a brand new show had like less than, you know, 1000 downloads started to show up on a bunch of podcasts around all the same time. And a brand new show rose up into the business charts, top 100 on Apple podcasts. And that was like the moment I was like, Oh, okay, this is a repeatable process. Now, yes, the only caveat to that that I think is important for people to know is, yes, there is guessing on other people's shows and there's guessing on other people's shows that have bigger audiences because I think sometimes people say, as a concrete example, Dr. Hardy was like, I want to do a hundred podcasts. And yes, like he's got an audience and has a lot of relationships. So he can leverage this a little bit better. But I told him, instead of 100, you know, with your busy time, what if we just went on like 30 that had probably the same amount of audience reach as the other 70 and that's what we focused on. And we did that. And that's what push his show up into the top business charts for a couple of weeks, which as a brand new show was like really, really awesome to see. And then a lot of those people stuck around for while, you know, he continued that show 100% and I think something that I hear out of that that we can apply to literally everybody who hears us right now is we talk here at Grow the Show all the time about getting on shows and getting on podcasts. But what I want to highlight there is that you said, pay a close attention to the audience size of the shows that you're aiming to be on, right? Because I've definitely seen it where podcasters get on 200 shows, but they were all shows that really don't have any listenership. And you can tell that like when you show up for an interview and the podcasters not well prepared, they reschedule it like four times, like, oh man, this definitely doesn't have an audience. And those people unfortunately burn themselves out on podcast guesting and really didn't get anything for it because they didn't really reach anybody. So it sounds like what you're saying is yes, it's important. You still want to hit a certain amount of volume with your podcast guest appearances, but maybe volume is the most important thing you want to combine the right amount of volume with actually impactful shows. How did you figure out what those 30 shows were as opposed to the 100? Yeah, well, so we had a target of reaching out to a bunch of like the top. Like pretty much what I did was like, okay, he has a business book. Let's go to all the top 100 business podcast and reach out to all of them and see, you know, what sticks and what lands. And obviously there's so much nuance there. But as an example, like we could do 100 shows without, you know, quantifying the amount of podcasts or, you know, a person like Dr. Benjamin Hardy could go on Ed Myled's podcast, which is another one of the biggest, you know, personal development shows. And when that happened, that was like one of the ones that really boosted up in the charts because that interview just did really well because that's a really big show. Now, obviously it's not easy to go and book a massive podcast. And there's a lot that goes into that of who you are, what relationships do you have, what audience size do you have? Like there's a lot of things that can make you more attractive to bigger shows, to book you as a guest. But I think it's just definitely worth. If you find yourself like, I'm doing all this guessing and it's not, I'm not seeing the results, you're like getting burnt out on it or think it doesn't work. It's really just a matter of, and no offense to any of those other shows. Like you said, though, if they're like ill prepared and all that stuff, then that's on them. There are still some shows that are like, they're not big, but they're doing a lot of the right things and one day they will be. That's different there. So no offense to any of them. But there just are shows that you're like, okay, yeah, that they have a big audience. Like if I can get on this one, this would move the needle a lot faster. That's the key. Yeah, that's the key. 100% and I'll double click on that because I truly discovered the power podcast testing with Grow the Show. I mean, I really hadn't done it much with my Philly show. My point is you don't have to go after Ed Milett, right? Ed Milett show very big, probably tough. Probably going to take five to 10 years to get on that show. But from a relative sense in your niche or kind of at the level that you're currently at, there probably is a show that is a little bit of a reach for you, but still has a significant following. For me, that was the School of Podcasting with Dave Jackson. So I had been on a couple of shows, but it wasn't until I was on Dave show. And I was surprised that he invited me on because I was only like a year or two into being a podcast expert, quote unquote, and Dave's been podcasting for 20 years, right? He's a school of podcasting been around forever. Inviting me on his show, I could not believe it did that appearance. The episode dropped and Grow the Show's audience doubled with that one episode. So it's the same exact thing, just on a more relative scale. So if you're hearing our voice right now, just look what is a show that's in your niche, that's maybe two to four times your show or just, you know, it may not be Ed Milett's size, but it's, it's a little bit of a stretch for you. Reach out, start the relationship, you know, say, hey, see if you can get on that show because a lot of times it's one or two key appearances that can make a big difference, right? Yeah, absolutely. So I'm just curious. I don't know if this question is going to lead anywhere, but I'm curious if there were any mistakes that you learned from in trying to make or grow school of greatness, were there any moves that you made where you like learned a lesson that might be valuable for an earlier podcaster to know? Yeah, I think that even at that level, the lesson of trying to do too much. It doesn't serve you. And the example of that is we were testing some things where it's a little bit different, but you know, a show like that that has a bunch of interviews, like we would do what I said earlier was we would do like mashup episodes. And there was a point where we were like, you have so much content. Let's put out a video on YouTube. So that podcast view was three times a week, but we're like on YouTube. What if we like posted every single day? And we tried that for a couple of months where we posted, you know, so it was like two brand new interviews a week. And then the rest was repurposed content, put into like a mashup form. So it was like specific name about like money or maybe health or relationships. Show was very was very broad. So we had a lot to work with, but what we realized was there just isn't enough time of the day for fans to really watch all of that. I mean, we're talking that would be almost like 20 hours of content a week totally. And we just thought like, if you do more, that's the key. And it was just a lesson where we realized, okay, it's actually not like we're not doing as well as we thought. And we're actually seeing kind of a dip in some of the stuff that we thought would do well. And so like then it was like, okay, let's dial it back. Let's go back to the foundations and the basics. And let's go back to, you know, three to four posts a week versus every single day, putting out a hour to two hour or if not longer piece of content on the YouTube channel. And so I think that there definitely is just that balance of thinking, oh, more is the answer. But I think oftentimes, especially like people now, they just want quality content. And they will value that if you give them three really good things a week over seven things that you're thinking are good. We didn't try to like cut corners with it, but it was just a lot. It was like way too much for people to consume. And so that was like a really interesting lesson where we're like, okay, actually, let's dial it back. And then things started to return back to like the normal thing where we were happy with the numbers and the growth of everything. And, you know, it also took less resources to put out three versus seven. So it was kind of interesting. That was definitely a really big lesson and kind of mistake that we made. I'm trying to think if there are any others. Well, I'll emphasize there. I hear a lot of solo pre-nerror podcasters who tell me that they plan on going from once a week to twice a week, publishing episodes. And for some of them, it is the right move. Like they've got the time. It makes sense. But I have heard others where I'm like, ooh, I don't really know if publishing twice as much is the best move right now. And a lot of people don't know the Grow the Show podcast for the first two years that this thing existed. It was every other week, right? Because that's at that point when I was building the business for the first time, all that we could, all the weekend handle well. So it just once again, it's like relative, right? You guys tried to go daily and how to dial it back to something more manageable, which was three a week, which I know that there's people like three a week manageable. What are they? But you remember that was a whole team, right? Well, it's tons of momentum. But I think that the lesson burns true. And for me, I'm like, damn it. The whole like not spreading yourself too thin, I'm almost disappointed to hear that that's something you have to be good at the whole way, because I feel like there was this dream that eventually you'll just have a team and you don't have to worry about that. But no, it's it's something that you have to learn. You have to learn how to prioritize how to learn how to, you know, not spread yourself too thin. That's awesome. All right. So I think I just want to bring it home with kind of started this way, but you know, we talk a lot with podcasters who are just starting or even haven't started yet. And so you've been here with us at Grow the Show and in the Grow the Show Academy for a while now, you get a lot of questions. So if you could port one message to every podcaster who's early on in their journey, and that they can receive, that they could ponder and take action on, what do you think that might be? That's a great question. The thing that's come up for me in the last couple of months, that is my favorite thought experiment for podcasters that I think will allow them to improve at the craft that we are all pursuing here. Ten times faster is this filter of take your show, whatever niche that you're in. And look at the top person that's in your space. That's crushing it that you aspire one day to like get to that level. What I would do is take one of their episodes that you really, really love. I would say look at their, if they're on YouTube, take their YouTube video. And it's through this filter. It's, if I put up my episode next to their episode, which one are people going to click on? And you can look at, you know, your title, and if you're on YouTube, your thumbnail, if we're just doing audio, your title and their title. And if you are honest with yourself, if you're like, I think that they would win, then go back to the drawing board and say, okay, what tweaks can I make to my title here? If we're talking about YouTube again, it's like, okay, my thumbnail and my title compared to their thumbnail and their title, what's better about theirs? And how can I get it to where eventually I feel like 90% sure, maybe I would win the attention of the viewer. There's not 100% success rate on this by any means, but when I coach people in Grow the Show Academy through this every single time, if they're honest with themselves, they're like, you know what, you're right, I wouldn't click on mine yet. And then the next week, they come back with their new and improved, you know, titles and thumbnails. And they're like, okay, I think I'm getting closer. And we're having people where suddenly a couple weeks later, their podcast and everything is truly 10 times better. Before you even get into the episode, and so then just the second part of that is now listen to the episodes. And what about it about this like percent of the top is better than yours, in terms of storytelling and the questions that they're asking. And just getting to that point where you also say, hmm, I think my episode's like up to par with theirs. If not better, like there are times where we see people that are maybe at the top that have been there and you're like, I think, you know, I won't tell anybody that I won't tell it to their Facebook, I'm like, I think my stuff's pretty good, you know, like have some confidence about it. And I find that when we've told people that in Academy, that it has transformed the way that they are showing up with their content and their podcasts and just allowing them to get better 10 times faster. Again, there's no 100% success rate, but it's just kind of thinking about your show and your content through that filter of putting it up next to your competitor, if you will, although it's more just like person that's in your space as well. And saying like, would someone click on mine over there and proving that week by week? I mean, there's just no way that you want to get better. Yeah. Chris, this is awesome. And so, so excited to have you here at Grow the Show so that we can, I mean, dude, you're the man. You're so smart. So, so excited to have you here. Tons of actionable advice. If anybody wants to learn more from you directly online, what can they do? I've got my own podcast right now. It's called the podcast game. Very similar in terms of like, just talking more about podcasting. So, you know, so you just want more things about podcasting. I mean, you and I, we share a lot of the same beliefs, which is why, you know, now I'm supporting you with like Academy and all of that because like we, I don't know, we have a great energy together when we're talking about podcasting because we're both obsessed with it. But I do some episodes over there. I'm feeling one's interested. And then I'm most active on LinkedIn. It's where that's my one, like we talked about earlier about not spending ourselves too thin. That other than just publishing the podcast, that's my one platform that I'm focusing on going deep on. And then eventually we'll expand. But I like to, you know, really try to practice when I'm sharing with people because anytime I'm like trying to get outside of it, it's like, oh, no, I was wrong. Let me go back to the basics and listen to what I said on the, you know, Grow the Show's podcast. Yeah, yeah, awesome. Chris Jordan, Grow the Show. Thank you so much for being with us here today, man. Thank you for having me. 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. All right, that's going to do it for a girl to show. My name is Kevin Schmittlin. I'll see you next time.