191 | What Happened When I Broke The #1 Podcasting Rule

I missed an episode last week. I broke the Almighty Consistency Rule. Now, whether you are new to podcasting or you've been doing it for years, I know that it has been drilled into your skull that consistency is the key to success. You gotta stay consistent, never miss a week. And if you want your audience to grow and you want your show to make money, you have to be consistent. You've heard this before, right? Well, last week, for the first time, since my show launched four years ago, grow the show did not publish an episode. There was nothing, the feed was empty. So, what happened? I broke the rule, did my audience write? Did they burn my home to the ground and cancel me for good? Did I, as a content creator, get banished to the seventh layer of hell? And more seriously, what actually happens when you break the Almighty Consistency Rule and miss your publishing schedule? How important is consistency when talking about growing a podcast audience? That is what we are going to explore here today. This is Grow the Show, where we grow our businesses by growing our podcasts. My name is Kevin Spitlin, I'm your podcast growth coach, and today we're gonna explore consistency and whether you need to be more consistent with your content or perhaps less consistent. And for some of you, you might have to be a different type of consistent. So, if you want to grow your podcast more easily and you want to understand the complicated role that consistency has in it all, stick around because by the end of this episode, you will. Let's get to it. All right, so like I said earlier, last week, I missed publishing for the first time, I think, in the four year life of Grow the Show. And the reason that happened is because last week, I moved home to Philadelphia from Miami, where I had been living for the past about two and a half years. Now, I don't know about you, I don't know the last time you moved, but I feel like every time I move, I like have amnesia over how much work it is, how much attention it takes, how much time it takes. And so, naturally, leading up to the move across the country from Miami to Philadelphia, I did get ahead on my recording and I had a plan for publishing content while I was busy with the move and while I didn't have my studio available to me. But naturally, I vastly underestimated the amount of content that I would need before I had my studio available. And even right now, my studio is not completely done yet in Philly. So I completely blew through my backlog and I also ran through my republishing backlog. So, quick tip, whenever I am pressed to publish an episode, what I usually do is I look to a previous episode of Grow the Show that performed well and I republished that. And usually I try not to republish something within a year of it originally airing and I also try not to republish things more than once. So, last week I had run at a time to record a new episode. I didn't have anything in the can and I looked through my republishing backlog and I really didn't have a great candidate to republish here on the feed. There wasn't an episode that A performed well because you don't wanna republish episodes that don't perform well in terms of completion rate and downloads. And B, while I have had some of those over the past year, I didn't have any that were published more than a year ago that I haven't already republished that performed well. So, here I was, it's late in the week, Tuesday is approaching which is when I currently publish episodes of Grow the Show and so I had a choice. I could either A, quickly throw something together, really fast and get it onto the feed and probably sacrifice either quality of content so what I'm saying or quality of post-production because the team that I work with podcast boutique while they do have really quick turnarounds, they do need some time to put the episode together. So, I could either throw together something quickly and post-produce it myself because I wouldn't have been giving podcast boutique enough time which I could do but I would be rushing at that too or I could republish something that didn't perform well or was published super recently which really isn't the best for you the listener or I could do the thing. I could miss a week and break the almighty consistency rule. And for the first time in four years, that's what I did. So what happened? Well, so far nothing and I know why that is. That's because you, the person who hears my voice right now, my listener, you fall into one of two camps. Most likely is that until this episode came out, you had no idea that I missed an episode last week and if that's you, take notice of that because when you're worried about what your listeners will think when you miss an episode or you don't publish, they won't even notice. So that's going to be most of you or you might have noticed. So you might be a listener who said, yeah, actually I was looking for your episode on Tuesday and nothing showed up and I wonder what was going on. And if that's you, sorry about that, but you're here now, aren't you? You're still listening and now you know what happened and hopefully I will do my job well and turn this into a good teaching moment. So most listeners fall into one of two camps. Maybe there are some listeners who noticed that I didn't publish last week and they said, oh my God, that's it. I'm never listening to this show again and they're not here anyway, so who cares? So I missed an episode last week. I broke the almighty consistency rule to my knowledge. My audience has not disappeared, which is good. Now I should note, there will be some cost. There is a really good chance that my downloads will be lower on this next episode. And even though I have never missed a publishing date for this podcast, I have done this in the past for Philly Ho and I have worked with more than 400 other podcasters over the past four years, some of whom have missed episodes. So I do know what happens when you miss your regular cadence. And in most cases, you do lose some momentum. So my downloads will probably be lower on this episode. But like I said before, I would rather do that than publish disappointing content than have thrown something up on the feed just to say I didn't miss a single week and disappoint you the listeners because here's the thing. If I miss a week and then I come back next week with some great content, that will be good for my audience. You were going to enjoy that year and be like, oh, this was awesome. He was super open and honest about missing a week and I learned something from that. If however, I cranked something out last week that was sub-par, I would have lost listeners for good. There'd be people who have been listening for a long time who were like, man, this show isn't as good as it used to be. And there will also be people who hear episodes for the first time, hear that episode and are like, man, I don't know what the hype is all about. That sucked, right? So you really don't want to publish disappointing content. When in doubt, don't put it out, okay? Now, another benefit that I've gotten from breaking the consistency rule is honestly, I gave myself full permission. I was like, all right, I'm missing this episode this week and it was fine and I was able to spend time unpacking and getting settled in. Like I said, moving is tough and once again, it has surprised me how unsettling it is and how thrown off I've been by losing my space and getting out of my routine. So it was really good to just be like, you know what, I'm missing it this week. So that has been my experience of breaking the consistency rule this week if something happens that I'm not expecting, I will let you know, but let's talk about you now. You might be wondering what this means for you. What does consistency mean for you and your podcast? And in my experience, when it comes to your relationship with consistency, you'll probably fall into one of three camps. Camp number one is that you have been doing this for a while, you are currently burnt out, you are uninspired, you are having trouble keeping up with your publishing cadence and you're cranking out episodes that let's face it are mediocre. You prioritize checking the box of publishing over making sure that your episodes are really good because you are so afraid of not quote unquote being consistent. So that's one camp, I'm gonna address what to do if that's you. Another camp is you might have been even podcasting for years and your audience hasn't grown at all and you're confused because you have been consistent. I get on calls all the time with broadcasters who are looking for help with growing their show and they say, I don't know what's going on here, I've been consistent, why hasn't my show grown? What gives? So we're gonna talk about that scenario. And then finally, you also might be somebody who is newer to the game and you've heard that consistency is important, but you wonder how important it is. We are going to address that situation last and that one is going to be useful to people who are in all three camps because I'm going to distinguish between the two types of consistency and the one that you probably haven't thought about is the one that's most important. So we will get to that. But let's talk about the first one first. Let's say you are totally burnt out, you are uninspired, you've been podcasting for a while and you've been cranking out episodes to check the box of staying consistent, you've been interviewing guests that are pretty good, they're fine or you've been publishing episodes just because hey, it's something, let's get something out there. So if that's you and you have wanted to take a break or you wanted to go on hiatus or even just take a few weeks off from the show to get things straight but you haven't because you've been afraid, listen up, do it. Take the time off, stop publishing, here's why. Uninspired content is not good content and content that is not good hurts you more than it helps you. It is better to publish nothing at all than it is to publish something that is subpar, that is not good, that is not remarkable. As Seth Godin says, something that is worthy of remark. So if that's you, I hereby give you permission to a take a break, maybe take four to six weeks and not publish anything on the feed or if you have and ever republished before, take four to six weeks and publish some greatest hits. Some of the episodes that have performed the best and side note pro tip, when you do that, don't over complicate republishing the episodes. You don't have to record a brand new intro that explains what this episode is and why you're sharing it. You don't have to edit together a crazy best of episode. That completely defeats the purpose of republishing. You wanna just take your best episodes, give them a quick skim to make sure there isn't anything on there like maybe ads or calls to action or something that shouldn't be on there and put them out for a few weeks and buy yourself some time. Or again, just take a freaking break, especially if your show doesn't have any momentum, there's no momentum to lose. So just take a break, reload the shotgun as it were and come back more inspired with more energy, okay? So that's camp number one. I hereby give you permission to break the consistency rule in the name of getting yourself some space. And by the way, that is what I did back in the day with my podcast about Philly, which is where I now live again, so excited for that. The show was not doing well, so I put the show on hold for six weeks. I broke the almighty consistency rule, which at that point I was terrified to do. I thought my ability to publish podcast episodes would be revoked by the podcast gods. It wasn't, I took some time, got some space, learned more about how to grow and monetize podcasts, brought the show back and the rest is history. Now, if you fall into camp number two where you've been doing this for a while, maybe even years and your audience hasn't grown at all, but you've been consistent, what the heck is going on? Well, here's what's important to understand about consistency. It is a requirement to be successful with a podcast or any type of content. However, here's the thing that a lot of folks miss. Consistency alone is not sufficient. And to illustrate this, I'm going to make an analogy. Most of us understand that if you want to get in great shape, you have to work out consistently, right? For this analogy, let's say you want to build muscle and you understand that in order to make your muscles bigger, you have to consistently show up at the gym. We agree on that? Cool. Well, a podcaster who has published consistently for 300 episodes, but has no audience growth, is akin to somebody who has walked into the gym every day for a whole year, but didn't do the right exercises. They just walked in. Maybe they grabbed a smoothie from the snack bar. They walked around, chatted with the gym staff, maybe hopped on the treadmill for five minutes and left. If somebody did that every day for 300 days, do you think their muscles would grow? Absolutely not, because they didn't do the right exercises. They didn't take the right action while at the gym in order to make their muscles grow. But they were consistent. They showed up to the gym every single day. What the heck? I thought I had to be consistent. You were consistent, but you weren't doing the right things consistently. If you're a podcaster who has been doing this for a while, your show has not grown, even though you've been consistent, you have one of two or both problems. Number one, your content might not be good. Your content might not be good enough. It might not be for a specific audience. It might not perform. It might not be remarkable. If you're curious about that, check your completion rates. If they're low, people aren't sticking around. Or you might not sufficiently be promoting the show. If you are just publishing a headshot on Instagram, or you're just like, hey, everybody new episode available now, and you have 1,000 followers on social, and it's been the same 1,000 followers for ages and ages. How is that going to get new people to discover your show? And if you've been doing the same thing to promote your podcast for 300 episodes, and it still hasn't grown, it's because you've been doing the same thing to promote your podcast, that doesn't grow a podcast. You are that person who has shown up to the gym every day for 300 days, but you haven't done the right exercises. And that's a bummer because the folks who I meet who have been doing this for 300 episodes and have had no growth, but they've been super, super consistent, I can see a little life go out of their eyes when I tell them, look, you've been doing the wrong things for years, and you can do this, you can grow the show, but you have to change what you're doing. You're gonna have to learn, it's gonna take energy, and they're like, oh, I don't know if I have it in me to do that because they have wasted all of their energy and their discipline on being consistent for 300 episodes. So if that's you, I apologize, I am sorry, but you have to do something different. And I think it's better to just stop and break the consistency rule so that you can figure out how to make great content and grow your audience. Those are two skills that you are missing one of them if your show has not grown. So that's the second camp. The third camp is you might be newer to the game, you haven't done this for a while, you haven't burnt yourself out yet, but you've heard that consistency is important and you're wondering how important is it? This one is going to be useful to everybody. Here's what's important to understand. There are two types of consistency. There is consistency of quantity or cadence, which is what most people think of when they hear consistency, right? So consistency of quantity, which is the amount or cadence, which is the schedule, is what most people think of. I'm going to publish an episode every single week for a whole year. This is key in the beginning. You get an audience through consistency of quantity. When you hold yourself to that standard and you never break that consistency, it helps you build the skill of making great content and getting people to find out that that content exists. That's where you learn. You learn how social media works, you learn how podcasting works, you learn how YouTube works, you learn how to be a better content creator. And the only way that you go through the annoying and uncomfortable stage of being bad and learning how to be good is by holding yourself to a consistent publishing cadence with no exceptions. However, once you get past that, once you achieve consistency of quantity and you get enough reps to become good and you've gotten an audience, here's what's important to understand. You get your audience through consistency of quantity. You keep the audience through consistency of quality. There comes a moment where you have established yourself as a creator and you have a decent audience. Could that audience be bigger? Do you want it to be bigger? Of course, you will always feel that way. But there comes a point where you have some strangers who have never met you in real life who are a fan of yours and consume what you put out on a regular basis. Those people have expectations for you. They expect a level of quality and if you don't maintain that level of quality, they are going to leave. They are going to take their attention and give it to somebody else. So I see all the time a podcaster has had it drilled into their brain that they must maintain consistency of cadence and consistency of quantity. And things happen where in order to maintain that consistency of quantity, they must sacrifice consistency of quality. And when they do that, they lose their audience and they get confused because they're like, what the heck, I've remained consistent. But it's like, yeah, no, you have it. You have not maintained a consistent level of quality and so you have lost your audience. That is the other type of consistency that we must understand. And it can be hard to know when you've reached the point where you must transition from consistency of quantity to consistency of quality. And honestly, that's a subjective moment. As far as I know, there's no objective measure for when you get to switch. But odds are, I think you probably know. If you are someone who has established at least somewhat of an audience, you know if your content quality has dropped in the name of quantity. If you've been phoning it in, if you've been interviewing mediocre guests, or you've just been putting out episodes just to put them out and it's just been a task for you to do a box fee to check, you might have dropped your quality. And so if that's you, here's my message. Maybe take your foot off the pedal that is quantity and reduce your publishing cadence so you can achieve quality. And guess what? To illustrate the fact that quality is more important, in my opinion, than quantity, consider this. While yes, I did miss an episode last week. For the first year and a half of the Grow the Show podcast, I only published episodes once every two weeks. So while I broke the consistency rule this month by not publishing weekly, in the past, I published every other week. So who should say what rule I broke is a cadence that I made up? And in this case, I think it was the right move to sacrifice a little bit of quantity in the name of quality. So that's gonna do it on today's pontification on consistency. My hope is that me being inconsistent this week in quantity has raised my consistency of quality and my hope is that today you learned something that you can apply to your podcasting journey. So that'll do it for this episode. And yes, I will see you next week. Till then, that is gonna 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 podcastboutique.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 gonna do it. For a girl to show, my name is Kevin Schmittlin. I'll see you next time.