189 | This Quick Change Will Help Your Podcast Attract New Listeners

This is Grow the Show, the podcast that helps you grow your podcast. My name is Kevin Spidlin, I am your podcast growth coach and today I'm going to share with you something that I think is going to make it much easier for you to grow your podcast because it's going to make it much easier for other people to be really excited to listen to your podcast. Last week I was at podcast movement which is one of the biggest podcasting conferences in the United States and I spoke on a panel with three other podcast experts. It was awesome, super grateful to be a part of that. There were probably about one to two hundred people listening to our talk and we spoke for 30 minutes and there was one moment during the talk where I saw the audience's eyes light up and I saw a bunch of people pull out their notes of their phones and write down what I just said and it was one of those things where it was a little surprising for me to see that happen because I say this all the time but this was the first time in a long time that I saw 200 human beings listening to me talk and so I could see in real time their reaction to things and what's crazy is after the talk was done there were a bunch of people who got in line to say hello to me and you know asked me a question which is really cool and several of those people mentioned this thing that I'm about to share. So this is going to be a really quick episode of Grow the Show because I just want to share this nugget with you whether you've heard me say it before or not it's a good reminder and that is this. And you are describing your podcast whether that's in your podcast description on your RSS feed and your intros to the beginnings of your podcast episodes or even if you're at a conference and you're telling somebody about your show you want to describe your show in a way that makes their eyes light up not glaze over. Most people when they tell another person about their podcasts the person they're speaking to their eyes glaze over like oh you have a podcast what's it about and the podcaster starts telling them about it and their eyes kind of glaze over and they're like oh wow that's really cool right and that's kind of it. Well the thing is when you're marketing your podcast online and you're introducing the show in your episodes you can't see the people who are learning about your show in real time you can't tell how things are landing but what I found is that there's one way to introduce your show that makes it so that eyes light up instead of glaze over and people get it and that is this when you describe your podcast don't describe what you are doing on the show right so you're not going to say I interview successful people or I share the best tips and tricks on how to do X Y or Z or I tell stories and share stories of incredible people you don't want to say it that way you want to describe your podcast from the perspective of your listener you want to use the second person right first person is I third person is they second person is you so you want to describe your podcast using the word you or your as much as possible how can you do that you do that by describing what the show is going to do for its listeners again not what you are going to do on the show but what your show is going to do for its listeners so if you go back and listen to the beginning of this episode of my podcast what I don't say is you're listening to grow the show where I interview successful podcasters to share how they got their success and where I share solar episodes on what I have learned and what I know about podcasting right that was I I they they they first and third person instead what I say is you're listening to grow the show the podcast that grows your podcast do you see how that's way more intriguing than me being like I'm going to interview successful people right I talk about it from your perspective what the show is going to do for you you want to do the same thing with your podcast what is your show going to do for its listeners and if you're not sure about that if you're just like man I really don't know then you definitely need to do this because when you describe your show from the third person you say I interview successful entrepreneurs on how they got successful you are relying on the listener or the perspective listener who's just looking at your you know podcast and the apps to figure out what am I going to get out of hearing these successful interviews what am I going to get out of hearing this person share their experience or share tips and tricks if they have to do that they're not going to do it first of all because our attention spans are so much lower these days they're not going to take the time to do that but secondly even if they did take the time they probably aren't going to figure it out and again if you don't know as the creator what your content does for its viewers or its listeners how on earth is anybody else in this planet gonna know what it does for its listeners now if you go back to my earlier show Philly who where I did interview successful Philadelphia's I didn't get this so I said you're listening to Philly who the podcast that tells the stories of the doers thinkers and performers of Philadelphia now that worked the show did well but when I did that show I didn't fully understand what that show did for its listeners what I know now is that Philly who brought its listeners closer to their home city they felt like they understood what was going on in their city better they felt like when they walked around the city they knew what was happening around them and they found out about cool stuff that they wanted to become involved in like restaurants they wanted to go to or you know businesses they wanted to support or or maybe it changed their perspective on businesses that they already support or even sometimes don't like right I interview the founder of a huge mega corporation that's headquartered in Philadelphia and I had people reach out and say hey I hated this corporation but once I heard the story of the founder now you know it's not so bad I'm like yes that is the point so that is what Philly who did for its listeners and so if I ever do bring Philly who back I'll say that the show shares the stories of successful Philadelphia Alphans but you bet I'm gonna tell people specifically here's what these stories are going to do for you so that's really all I wanted to say to you today because it is that impactful I can't tell you how many people throughout the rest of that conference came up to me and said hey that's really helpful to talk about my show from the perspective of what it does for its listeners same thing is true for any content that you create and anything that you market it's really easy to think from our perspective here's what I am doing nobody fault you for that that's all we think about right that's all we know is our own perspective but if you can get really good at describing things from the second person from the perspective of who's gonna consume that thing and what it's gonna do for them it's going to be way easier to grow your show it's going to be way easier to grow your business because people are gonna get it they're not gonna have to do the work to put two and two together and it's much easier for them to say yeah I want that right count me in so that's gonna do it it's gonna be a really quick hit episode of Grow the Show I am in the process of moving right now from Miami to Philadelphia I'm coming home baby so right now things are a little fast and loose if you're watching on YouTube you can see I'm not in my usual studio because that has been torn down and I'm gonna build a new one I will see you in the next one between now and then though what I want you to do is describe your show from the perspective of your listeners what is your show going to do for its listeners use that whenever you describe the show whenever you promote episodes whenever you say oh this is what my podcast is and the eyes will light up and they won't no longer glaze over so that's gonna do it for this episode of Grow the Show my name is Kevin Schmittland and I will see you in the next one