86: How a Legendary Podcaster Creates Successful Shows, With Eric Nuzum

Hey, Kevin Sridland here and this week's episode of Grow the Show is going to be a little bit different than usual. You may have noticed upon clicking play that this one is way longer than usual episodes of Grow the Show. And there is a reason for that. Today we are going to be giving you a sneak peek inside the Grow the Show podcast accelerator program and giving you full access to a Q&A session that we held with Eric Newsom. Eric Newsom is a Godfather in the podcasting scene. He essentially brought podcasting to NPR in the 2000s. He would lead the podcasting division of NPR for a long time. He would lead podcasting it audible for a long time and recently he launched his own podcast production company called Magnificent Noise. He is also the author of Make Noise, which is a book that I recommend you read if you haven't already. He was the very first guest of this podcast. So if you scroll all the way back to episode number two of Grow the Show, you will hear Eric's story and hear what he teaches. And overall he is just a guiding light in what we do here at Grow the Show because he has taught me and everyone here so much. And Eric Newsom was gracious enough to hold a guest coaching session within the Grow the Show podcast accelerator. You're going to hear the questions that the Grow the Show clients asked Eric. You're going to hear his responses in full and in doing so, you're going to learn several different things including how to make an amazing show, how to think about getting your first sponsors, how to think about who your audience is and many, many, many more things. So please, please, please refer to this. I don't expect you to listen to all of this in one go, but I do think that you are going to find value in every single minute of what we've shared here today. And it is just going to be something that really helps you find clarity, I think, because Eric is just an absolute pro. So here's a very, very, very special thanks to Eric Newsom for holding this guest coaching session with our clients here at Grow the Show. Here's a special thanks to Catherine Nails, the associate producer of the Grow the Show podcast, who MC this coaching session as well, you're going to hear her voice first. And also here's a very special thanks to our clients here at Grow the Show for allowing us to share their questions and for being vulnerable and allowing everyone else to get value from them being coached. So without further ado, this is the guest coaching session featuring Eric Newsom within the Grow the Show podcast accelerator, totally free, right here. And now let me know what you think. This episode of Grow the Show is sponsored by Riverside.fm, the leading platform to record studio quality podcasts. More than 70,000 other podcasters use Riverside, including myself, Guy Raaz, Gary Vee, Spotify, and even the New York Times. Riverside is not only great because it has unbelievably high recording quality regardless of your or your guests internet quality, but it also gives you separate audio and video tracks for each person speaking. It's high tech, but easy to use. Unlike Zoom, you don't have to have anything installed on your computer and your guests don't either. And did I mention that the audio quality is way better? If you're recording your interviews remotely, get off of Zoom now and hop into Riverside for your next interview. Your listeners will thank you. Head over to Riverside.fm and use code Grow that's GROW to get 60 free minutes of recording and 15% off a membership plan. The link is in the show notes. Hello everybody. We have a very special guest coach today. Our guest coach is podcast legend, Eric Newsom. So Eric has been in podcasting for I think over 15 years now, correct me if I'm wrong. He spearheaded and PRs podcasting efforts starting in 2005 and has developed a ton of really well known, really popular legendary shows. He has his own podcast production company called Magnificent Noise. And he's the author of Make Noise. That sounds familiar to you. It's because it's the book that we send everybody when you first join this program. So Eric obviously totally knows this stuff and he is here to answer your questions. So I don't know if you want to say anything or add to that, Eric, before we get started. So no, hi everyone. I enjoy doing this. This is fun. I'm really excited to hear you and hear from you and answer your questions and see you out walking out there. Absolutely. And thank you again from everybody reading some people in the chat saying that they're big fans. So I know we all appreciate you taking the time to be here. That's very kind. It's very kind. So we sent out a job form a few days ago and those of you who submitted your questions via the job form will take priority. And then once we get through those job form questions, everybody we will let you ask them as they come to your mind. So our first question comes from Diane and she wants to know what you think the future of podcasting looks like. Do you think the market will be flooded and dilute quality and interest? Or are you hopeful that it will gain popularity and become more lucrative for those who survive? Well, I don't make predictions about the future. I often, whenever I'm asked to make predictions, I use it as a way to tell the truth about what's happening today rather than thinking about the future. So I, in fact, in most of these conversations on talking about the future, I always try to focus the conversation on what's not going to change. Right. So in the future, when it's not going to change, there's so many people who want to hear voices and ideas and stories and they're going to want it to be easy to do. And podcasting continues to get easier and easier and easier, yet a lot of the major companies try to make it harder and harder and harder by putting up roadblocks or obstacles or paywalls or, you know, please sign up or if you listen to my app, you can talk to other people that are listening to my app, it's like, we're just making more complicated. And innovation always favors simple. So I would say that the future of podcasting will hopefully be things getting simpler, things getting easier. I think you've seen a lot of innovation in the past several years that has opened the flood gates for creators. If you look at, like, anchor and different tools are getting easier and easier to use, creating a podcast is getting easier to use. And so the barrier to entry is easy, right. It's almost nonexistent. If you have a smartphone, you can be a podcaster. The barrier to success is really, really high. And, you know, there are a thousand new podcasts a day, every day, and they're competing with a thousand yesterday and a thousand tomorrow and a thousand a day after that. And all of the kind of, like, promotional infrastructure inside a podcasting was set to support a world which was much, much, much smaller, where you would have a couple thousand a month, right. And so while it has grown exponentially, podcasting has both listening with a half of population listening to podcasts and, you know, a thousand new podcasts a day, when Steve Job announced that podcast was coming inside of iTunes, there were three thousand podcasts in that directory that day, three thousand. And all everybody could say is, wow, that's an impossible amount of choice, right. Now, and now there are arguably somewhere between three and five and a half million, depending on which number you use, Spotify has millions more because they have anchor, which makes it super easy to set up a podcast. And, you know, my dog and I convert bill podcasts in 20 minutes and have them on anchor, it counts. So it's probably closer to two and a half million and I recently read that the number of podcasts that have updated in the last 90 days is only 150,000. So in some ways, there's like this lot of content, but also the number of podcasts are available today is equal to the number of websites that exist in 1997. And since 1997, people have also some interesting new things to do with the internet. So I think the podcasting will probably be very similar of you will be able to, it will change inevitably, hopefully we'll get easier, hopefully it will, there'll be more of a YouTube like experience, YouTube is very egalitarian that doesn't matter if you're a big studio or an independent, usually the right content finds the right people with a lot of static and interference. And that I think will unlock more, I don't, you know, being huge in podcasting isn't important as being is connected to the right people, you know, you can have an audience that literally mentioned numbers in the hundreds or thousands and have a thriving podcast if those are the right hundreds or thousands of people. So, there's a lot of answer, that's the best I can do. That was a fantastic insight, thank you so much. I think it's like still stuck on the fact that there were 3,000, like just 3,000 podcasts at any given moment, I know it sounded like so much. But Steve Jobs got really excited about it, it was actually before the iPhone came out. I think it was about a year before the iPhone was even announced. They had one of their big Apple keynote events and the first item was we're bringing podcasts inside of iTunes and you have your choice of 3,000 podcasts and people were like, oh, it's sort of plowing, this is really kind of funny to watch. That's wild. So we're kind of kind of doing a bout face with our next question from Monique, which she says after nearly three years of producing her podcast, she still feels like her workflow is feeling a little bit clunky, a little inefficient. So do you have any recommendations for creating a podcasting workflow that's efficient and helps her save some time? Well, without knowing what a workflow is, I can't really give many recommendations. I think she should be here, Monique, I think I saw her name hanging out here. Hey, it's Monique, nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, give me the three sentence version of your workflow. I have a form that potential guests fill out. So they fill out a questionnaire. Once I decide yes to them, then my assistant helps them, you know, gives them a link to get on my calendar. And then I interview them using Zencaster. I think the clunkiness comes in when it's time to edit and do the promo image and do the all the social media, like I hate all that. I hate it. Yeah, but it's the important stuff. It's the important stuff. It's the stuff that really I believe in allocating your time based on the importance of the task. Right? And it's really hard. You know, I believe as if you red make noise by book, you'll see that I talk about the yin and the yang between audience development and production and creation that you can't just create something and expect the world to find it. You really have to think from the jump about how you're going to develop the audience from the thing you make and the audience building work should take up as much time as it does the production of the episode and the social assets, the time you spend on them are just as important as they are in researching guests and reporting and all that stuff. And there are some tools you can look at that I think can improve workflow. Like I look at like where am I kind of like spending a lot of my time, which feels like it's a disproportionate to the amount of benefit I'm getting out of that. And I either don't do it because if I'm not getting enough benefit, it's not worth my time. Or I just hunt around for what other people are doing at that stage to see if there's something else I could try. And like for example, I started using a and a series called headliner. I don't know if you are familiar with that. It makes a lot of audio generates a lot of social assets. I am a big believer in descript, which is a great fantastic tool for editing. And like one of the workflows I found was that we would edit and descript and then move it into pro tools to do our fine edits. And for some of our shows, we didn't need to do that. We could do get things actually sounding great inside of the script for most episodes. So why not just the ones that need to be in pro tools will take out, but we don't need to make that extra step. So we have one show that's now produced entirely in pro tools and never gets mixed in another editing program. So as far as workflow, I just like, you make a list of, you know, I have, I've actually just lived this on project like make a list of everything you do, a long, long, long list, every step you take, right? And then just starting looking at it and start asking like, am I getting a return for this is validates that amount of time? And if I had more time, where would I spend it? You know, like in this, this kind of theoretical world of five, six to five hours a week, where would I spend it and pay attention to where you gravitate towards because those and things that you feel have the most value in that process. So how can you make more space for those and less time for the things that don't do what they're returning? And that's the only way I, I audit processes that way that that helps all. Thanks. The attitude of, there's always a better way to do something and networking with like your fellow students here or in, you know, podcast groups are online or have you or podcast clubs. There's always somebody who's figured out a better way to do something the way you're doing it. Always. 100%. Thank you. Fantastic. Thank you so much. It's great about what Kevin actually has us do that pretty often and grow the show. So fantastic advice and I can, I can say firsthand that it's definitely really helpful. Um, so I think our next question is from Merrill and Merrill wanted to ask this herself. Hi, Eric. Thank you so much for taking the time out to speak with us. I really loved the example you gave with the four point circle and Julia, your, your yoga instructor in the book. And I was trying to practice my own and just wondering in terms of feedback if you had any to help tighten it up. No, we still do the four point circle. I did one on Tuesday. We do it in every, every, the two exercises are in that book that get that I still do religiously at every meeting I do is the find your listener on Google images and the four point circle. We've adding one other question to that. So it's more like a five point in circle, but I'm not quite sure where the fifth question fits in. We asked now what problem are you solving with your podcast? So not only who is it for who are you, what are you trying to say, what's your message and what's the fact you're trying to create the four points on that circle, but there's also in that same conversation, we have another question, which is what problem are you solving? And it's, it's a little bit of, there's a catch to it that it can't be your problem. It has to be somebody else's problem, has to be the listeners problem. You solving your own problem, like I have a lot to say, I'm, I have a cheese podcast because I have a lot to say about cheese and I want people to listen to me. That's your problem. That's not a listeners problem. This is not going to care. You've got any thing you want to say about cheese. But if you're making a cheese, I don't know where this cheese podcast came from. I'd like to find out by the top of my head, my, my co owner of Magnus and there's Jesse Baker and I will always talk about quitting some day and opening a cheese shop. So which we think will be much easier than what we're doing now. But let's say you want to make a cheese podcast and you want to target it towards people who are new to artisanal cheese as, as, as makers of artisanal cheese, they're, they're cheese hobbyists, cheese making hobbyists. And they're trying to figure out like how to navigate making their own cheese and like different types of cheese they can make and so on and so forth. They're really learners about this process of cheese making and you as a cheese expert are helping them solve their problem of knowing kind of learning and knowing how to make cheese well and also connect them to a community of other listeners who are other cheese makers. Right. So that's solving their problem. You know, there's a, there's a futurist named Neil Postman who's been dumped from him years, but he's always say, I read him when I was in college, he said, um, technology is only good when it solves a problem and the problem can't be yours. And every new technology that solves a problem creates another problem. And so your problem have the, the, your solution, your technology needs to solve more problems than it creates. So I, I think that, you know, so that's the only change in the exercise really is what problem are you solving? The problems can be, I want to laugh from listeners perspective, I want to laugh, I want to laugh to less alone, like a bite, like a, like a, like a, let's say you have a podcast that's targeting towards people who are dealing with a disease and living with a disease. Like, and you are making them feel far less alone by having this community of people who are this, this, this podcast, a problem can be, I don't understand what's going on in the world. Can someone please explain it to me? I don't understand what's going on in this part of the world or this, in this area or I'm really excited about humble figurines, can someone tell me about humble figurines? Like, that's a problem that people have and a podcast solves that. If you can't answer what your problem, your podcast solving is really no point in going at it. Right. Right. Thank you. And I do have a problem that I'm solving. Sometimes I wonder if it's too generic or if it's not specific enough, and it sounds like as long as my audience has that problem, it's okay. As long as an identifiable group of people who you can find have that problem and you're speaking to those people, you're all right. Okay. Thank you. Very much. Sure. This fantastic, fantastic info there. I'm going to go ahead just due to the mic issues and ask Mariel's question for her. And her question is that she's been using a log attack camera to record her video when she records her show. She uses the Zoom platform for recording. And that is just not working. It keeps going out of focus, just having trouble finding some alternatives. So do you have any suggestions for a good quality camera? No, I don't. I'm not very – I have a very kind of like little of people figure it out, and I'll follow the recommendations, be towards second general, and I know even less about cameras. I think that part of something you may want to try is also recording on like Zencaster or Riverside or SquadCast, because their technology works a little different than Zoom, and you may get a much better quality recording out of it, where Zoom is not going to give you a high fidelity recording, all three of those Zencaster or SquadCast and Riverside all use the camera either on your laptop or a USB camera differently, and maybe able to get you a better quality. Yeah, I agree. And we have a good time. It looks like some of your classmates are coming up with some suggestions just as to. Fantastic. Well, that's the end of our pre-submitted question. So anybody else who has a question, feel free to raise your hands starting now. But in the meantime, I was curious, Eric, and I think you might have mentioned this before. Forgive me if you haven't. If you have plans to write another podcasting book on, if so, what would you include? It's interesting, because the book has done really well, but I've had zero conversation about doing a second one. And I don't, there are some subjects I just didn't have space to discuss before. Make noises written so that it could have a very long shelf life. No, there's no tech stuff that there's no how-tos by process wise, because everything suits you. Publishable. It's going to be outdated. Because everything changes. But I figured that was for somebody else's thing. But I did not touch much on the use of sound or music in podcasting. It's like a scoring element or themes or so and so forth. That's a huge area that I just ran out of space for. There's a couple other things a bit more advanced for you towards editing and kind of story selection, so and so forth. And we were not looking at what people struggle with. There's a big disconnect between there when people come and ask me, what should I podcast about? What do you care about? What are you passionate about? But then I'm an answer that you should make a podcast, right? So a little bit more of that, you know, I wrote the book because I was saying the same things over and over and over and over and over and over again. So I have to make a new list of things I'm saying over and over and over again. I do have, I do have a newsletter, so I called the audio insurgent, you go to audioinsurgent.com or you go to air news.com at the top as a thesis newsletter that you can sign up and I put that out every couple of weeks and those tend to be, they're written very much in the same tone as make noise and it's something that feels like a continuation of that book. Fantastic. I think that's great. And I think I'd love to hear a little bit more just like a brief summary of what you would say to this group regarding, because I know you mentioned, use of sound and scoring in the podcast. It was something that you would maybe include, had you had more space in your book. Yeah. So, you know, I talk to people, you know, there's two things that surprise people when they talk to me. It's, you know, I have a lot of opinions about format, not a lot of opinions about sound design and aesthetics and yet at the same time, I try to not create boxes that I don't need to live inside of. So if you look at a lot of the shows that I do, you'll see they don't have consistent formats like every episode's produced differently. Every episode can sound different. Every episode has, like, what does this need in order to convey these ideas? If you look at the most recent season of far flowing, which we just finished last month, which is a 10 podcast that I do, it's 10 different episodes, not there are not two of them that sound like there's not a share, a second of shared music between them. There's, and they're organized very differently. So they don't necessarily even have like a format or any kind of consistent flow within that episode. And we do that a lot. Even with things that are, you know, some things that have some general format to them, but we just don't like them, you know, I've always said you're a victim of the rules that you live by. Sometimes it's a good thing. Sometimes it's bad. But people say, how long should my theme music be? And I always say, why do you have a theme? What does that do for you? And they assume when I say that, that I'm implying that they shouldn't have music, not say, but everything in every moment of your podcast should be a deliberate choice and a purposeful choice. And if you don't need a theme music, don't, if you don't have a reason to have a theme there, why isn't there? If you don't, you know, sometimes people like, always start off with 15 seconds of music to set the mood, like 15, you know, the average person listens to about 17 seconds of a podcast episode to decide if it's going to, if it's relevant to them or not. So basically burned up with your 15 seconds. You've burned up, you're looking at some two seconds to make an impression on somebody. Like, why is that the best use of your time? It's the best use of your listeners time. You guys sit there and listen to 15 seconds of this music again and again and again. What is the point? And if the point is there is a reason, like the reason is that I have a different, I start my podcast with a different voice every time. And I want to have something consistent that let's let this provide some sort of, kind of a through line between my episodes. Like, that's a, that's a good reason. That's a purposeful reason. So I can't think of a second, but that's a good one right there. And so that's, to me, is that's a purpose. And so everything and then, like, should I put music underneath my stories? All right, my conversations. What's the purpose of it? What's the purpose of it? And sometimes, and so we take, and this is going to be so hard to say, because we look at a lot of my work. You'll see a lot of it is scored, there's a tremendous lot of it scored like a movie. It does like a lot of music in it. Like, you can see that I mentioned that far flung. It feels like tons of music throughout far flung, right? Almost every episode, except when it doesn't serve a purpose. And then, like, if you look at the Iceland episode, for example, in that season, there's hardly any music in it at all. And the reason there was hardly any music in it is, it didn't need it. We put music in it, we're like, it's just too busy. There's too much going on, it's losing focus. So we took almost all of it out, but it still feels like a far flung episode. So I think the big thing about music and so and so forth is, there are no rules. What you feel is right is right. But make sure what you're doing has intention of purpose. And let that be your guide. Let's do it because somebody else does it or podcasts you like does it. Do it, have it or not have it because it's what's right for you. That's fantastic advice. I know personally, I grow the show. We tend to shy away from using music just for the exact reason that you said, we don't feel that it would really serve us or our audience purpose. I do see we have a couple of heads up. However, I am realizing I skipped over one of our submitted questions. So I'm going to make sure we get to that. And that question is, this podcaster is in health and wellness. And they, she speaks to women with autoimmune and burnout conditions. Her podcast mainly does interviews where these people share options and opinions that aren't mainstream, but she's feeling the need for certain level of journalistic inquiry and fact-checking as she progresses and has these people on because, you know, I don't think she wants to be spreading false or potentially harmful information. However, she thinks that this will also be a ton of more time and effort than what she really has to ban with for. So she was wondering what your thoughts and expectations are in terms of the podcasters at the global responsibilities to their listeners. So there was a lot in that question. I was listening and I'm having trouble framing this question. So they want to know if the ethical responsibility they have to their listeners to do what specifically, the information they are including or are actually agreeing them or when you hear that, do you think that question means? So in short, yeah, this person essentially has a health and wellness podcast that, and she interviews people who are giving options and opinions that are outside of what's the mainstream, sort of outside the norm of what's recommended for people. She's not sure that she has the bandwidth to do a ton of fact-checking and so I think she was just curious. Oh, right, right, right. Sort of. Okay, now I understand. So the relationship between you as a creator and your audience is a trust-based relationship. They trust you, right? And especially when you're in the health and wellness space, that trust has even more impact and importance, right? And I, so I'm just having heard nothing of your podcasts. I would say that you bear a lot of responsibility to be the caretaker of your community and the caretaker of your listeners. Does that mean you need to fact-check everything that said? No, but if you don't feel comfortable with what someone is saying, I think you need to flag that, or that's present shouldn't be on your podcast. If you don't trust them, if you don't think what they're saying is of interest or is worth exploring or considering. And some of that is how you frame it too. Like if you say, hey, you know, and that is here this weekend and net has some great, it has a weight loss system that really sounds amazing. And the weight loss system is like eating nothing with peanut butter all day, right? I actually think there was a peanut butter diet somewhere. That's like a memory of there being something called a peanut butter diet. Let's say that the, instead, let's say that the diet is eating nothing but oranges all day, right? That's why is this eat oranges non-stop, right? If you present that and just pass that to your listeners, your listeners assume that because they trust you, they should trust this. That I think is a failing. But if you said, if you take the position of, let's explore this as an idea, listeners together. I'm not endorsing this, but I just get curious is to why this person feels this way, right? Or you could also decide, and I'm not a big fan of both sideisms, but is there somebody who could talk to you who might be able to listen to that and with you? And like you could, like, re-talk to an nutritionist and say, look, I have this person I'm talking about this diet. Could you listen in and you and I talk about it afterwards? So it doesn't put you in the position of bearing all the weight of responsibility, and you can also have a couple like reactions and inside something. So I think that you do have, and I think that's really when you're asking that question, was the word ethical, because it doesn't even get to the point of being ethical. It's like the humanity of your relationship with your audience. The mutual respect that's involved requires you to be very careful about what you're putting in front of people. It doesn't require you to be perfect. It doesn't require everything to be fact-check, but it requires you to, you have a responsibility. Let's put it that way, to do something. Yeah, absolutely. I couldn't agree more. And I think that was some great advice, especially given the time constraints this person has because the advice we gave is something that's not going to take up a ton of extra time. So now that we've gotten through all of that. So just, yeah, let me add a little Coda on to that too, because he talked about time. I think it's always really important to have a vision of what you want your show to be. This is another example of this. Have a vision of what you want your show to be. And if you have an idea for an episode that doesn't live up to it, you should not do it. If you're going to require you to put in more time than you have the ability to give, do another topic, right? It's to say, sometimes we get ourselves with me in this rabbit hole, if I just keep editing it, it will get better. And sometimes I keep editing it, it gets worse. Or it doesn't, it never kind of goes. I have some point up to say, look, this idea is not working. And it's not just a matter of editorial, like it's an interesting. It's also, can I do the right treatment of this for the time I haven't available? And it's okay for me to answer to be no. But it's one of the things that I've said. Yeah, no. I mean, as always, fantastic advice. And I can say personally, it's not a failure if it doesn't work sometimes here. No. Don't work. It was a show episode because we just didn't feel like it was going to serve our audience in the way we felt like they deserved. And that's, I always say that the amount you're willing to risk equals the amount you're going to gain. So if you're not taking much risk, you're not going to gain. And taking risk means that sometimes things aren't going to work the way you thought. And that's okay. Exactly. Couldn't have put it better myself. So I think next up, we have Steve with a raised hand in the chat. Here he is. Well, we have two questioners for the price of one. So I don't normally come to these Friday sessions because I'm on dead duty. But I thought seeing as you were here, I got thought the year so pleasure to meet you. And the first thing I'll say is I wish I'd taken your advice six months ago in terms of niching down because we're at the point with our podcast now that I just realized that we're not specific enough. So my podcast is Escape the Nine to Five, which is helping working professionals escape the Nine to Five and find a career they love. And now I've come to the realization that in order to be specific enough, it needs to be helping veterinary professionals who don't enjoy their career to make a career change. So the question that I have for you is, I want the podcast to also relate to medical professionals. And on a little bit new this about, when I niche down, it will be aimed for veterinary professionals. But when I'm sort of talking on the podcast, if I talk only to veterinary professionals, it immediately anyone who's a doctor or a dentist or something in the similar field will likely turn the podcast off. So my question to you is, can I niche down to the level of veterinary professional without directly addressing them when I'm talking on the podcast? Like what would your advice be there? Because my ultimate aim would be for the podcast to apply to medical professionals in general, that yeah, I don't want to scare off doctors and dentists and similar professionals just because when I go on the podcast and say, this podcast is for veterinary professionals who need out making career change. What's your perspective on that? Well, and if I'm hearing you correctly, you're saying veterinary like as an animal scratch, there's veterinary, yes. Yeah, I think that's a great niche. And I think that you could even get nicheier than that if you so desired. People who are new in their career, mid-career, late-career, people who are in rural areas, urban areas is very good. Veterinary medicine is very kind of a broad field in some ways. But when you're talking about wanting to exclude dentists or doctors or whatever, there has to be some medical professionals that's too way too broad. It includes the phobonymous at the local doctor's office up to the university medical researcher to a caregiver in a retirement home is like a lot of people follow me that umbrella. And it's okay. It's okay to either specialize by field or to specialize by a problem they have that you might be able to help them with needing to change careers or needing to change specialty. That's, I've heard you mentioned that a couple times. That's very specialized. I think you can't do, unless you want to talk to veterinary medical professionals who want to change careers or mid-point in their career. Which I think is actually, we're being interested in niche, right? But the, is kind of hard. So when you talk about targeting someone, you're never going to have, she's not buying it. She's not buying it. It tells them buying it. Whenever you are talking about a target audience, that doesn't mean it's the only person who's going to listen. Other people will find value in that conversation. But it's kind of hard to target someone unless both you and they are clearly that's the target. That's who the community wants to be with. I'm not sure if that's helpful to you or not. Yeah, I mean, I'll just move away from my baby so that we can get a proper opinion then. How long is baby time? They're fine. The thing I always compare it to is Kevin with his show, Grow the Show. He, his target audience is grow the show for entrepreneurs, but it's not made clear in the podcast, which means that he can actually apply to entertainment podcasters as well. I'm just like struggling with a dilemma of, I know that I need to niche down to a level of, those are the people that I'm speaking to in the background, but do I need to implicitly state it in the podcast? Or can I be a little bit more vague and say, you know, doctors, dentists and veterinarians? Or do you think that even when I'm talking on the podcast, I really need to niche down and talk specifically to veterinarians only. I think you need to niche down to be super clear in everything. It's everything because you're just going to text to your title, how you introduce the show. Like I, as speaking some of the other day, an amateur podcaster who came up with a podcast that they're working on, and I asked him to describe it and they said, we're two young people explaining hip stuff to old people. Like that's what their podcast is, right? And they know who they're speaking to. And I'm like, that could be your title, that could be the first line of your show description and all sorts of things. And it answers every question. Like who is this for? And it doesn't mean that people who aren't old are going to not want to listen to it, but they're super clear, right? And I think that if you make a similar statement in your podcast, like look, we're the podcast that is about X for veterinary professionals. So do you come across that? May still want to listen, even if they don't fall in that group, because they're interested in what you've learned and what your community is learning. What you're talking about. Yeah. We listen to podcasts that aren't targeted at us all the time. We just don't think about it. But that happens all the time. I think that's like a question. Thanks, Eric, and thanks for the fellow writing little Nala here, a little bit grumpy that she's not seen from a tangent. Well, you know, we can all wave at her. Hi. Hi. She's not going to go by the beach. Yeah, really. Yeah, thanks, Eric. You bet. It's a midday cup of coffee, like I do. I think our next raised hand is from Paris and Paris is joining us via her phone. Yes, hi, Eric. Thanks for I just have a quick question. So when you were talking about the niching down, so my podcast, I just want to ask you this, because I know it's centered around. So it's for those living with bipolar disorder or people who have loved ones who are to learn like solutions for living well or like from guests coming on, sharing like their stories, their experience, what's been helpful, what's not been helpful. Do you think that is like niche down enough? Because it's not like it's for women with bipolar or like men with, it's like just everyone in general. There, so yes and no. I think it's a conversation that people can learn from. I think that the amount of focus you have is directly related to the amount of potential impact you can have inside that community. So it's kind of like generalized for people who do a bipolar, so if you start from that or deal with that. Looking at it for being for young women or parents who are bipolar or parents of bipolar children, like almost any further slice down, it becomes, it becomes much more vivid to, and that doesn't mean, by the way, it doesn't mean 100% of the time. You can talk about nothing but that. It means that that is your focus and your anchor. And I think that if you say like, I am putting together a, I'm making this up. I don't know anything about you. So I'm just making this up. But I am making a podcast for young people, men and women who work in the art field and also are bipolar. I don't know what you should do for living or churches, right? Like that is like, wow, like that's a podcast but someone's gonna look at it and say, that's for me. I'm really interested in that. You can kind of go back to the last question about, you can see lots of people who may have, they may be bipolar, they may have people that are lyphoid or bipolar, they support or connect into love, they still might listen to that, just to hear that to find out what you're learning and what you're exploring. So I just think that the more niche you even get, especially when you're dealing, it's not like there's like a thousand, they probably is a thousand, 100,000 podcasts for people who are bipolar, but there's a lot. So like always look for the white space, what can I do that nobody else is doing? But yet I can do it. Like it makes sense for me to do it. There's a sample of a book. I just saw the guy three, like three, four weeks ago. There's an example of a book of a guy who is a real estate agent in Northern California who makes a podcast just for other real estate agents in Northern California. And, you know, I'm sure other real estate agents would listen to it and enjoy it. Because, oh, but it's really targeted at that. You just need a better example. I am a last year of some mentoring through a sort of program that someone connected me to, two young women who were starting a podcast about growing up Arab American and Dearborn Michigan. It's called Dearborn Girl. It's still available, I think they've taken a break from it. But Dearborn Girl is about like life as a Arab American woman in Dearborn Michigan. And as they started to grow, they started to realize that all these other young Arab women from other parts of the country were listening to the podcast and writing in and wanting to participate. They had no connection to Dearborn whatsoever. But they were connected to the being Arab American growing up in that unique culture in the United States and they related to the podcast. So even though it had a really fine target of what it wanted to be, a very clinical niche, other people saw value and enjoyed it. So yeah, I think that if you try to make it inclusive by making it broader, you actually make it less impactful in a weird way. Yeah, I know that's super helpful because that's something that I, because originally it was just mental health in general, just mental health. Yeah. And that anyone can come on and say, but it's called Master Your Mental. So I'm like, I was like, oh, should I change the name? Should I do this? And then I'm focusing on like narrowing it to like women because that's specifically like, I don't know, I'll have to think more, think more on that. But yeah, I know that was helpful instead of just, because I'm like, oh, yeah, it's already niche enough. But yeah, that makes sense. Like the more, we say it was master the mental master your mental master your mental. So that's, that's, it's a clever title. And that's actually not a compliment. I actually don't like clever titles. I like things that are very literal or, or, or, or actually kind of are evoking what that show is. And that, the reason I don't like that title as much is, it's, it could be a thousand different things. Yeah. And, and, and I think that you're in space with a lot of other people. And yet you have something very unique to offer. So what is focus on the uniqueness, right? Yeah, because I was thinking of putting like bipolar in it or something. I don't know. But yeah, so you're saying, I'm just going to have to think more. Yeah, but no, that helps a lot. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you so much. And just this real quickly. Like, I'm just going to continue to just make up example of people who work in the art to our bipolar, call it the bipolar artist or, or, or something like, it doesn't have to be so that's really, really, blandly literal. But it should be something that's something like, oh, I get that. Or if it is a clever reference, it's something that someone in that group would get immediately. I think they understand what it means. Like, let's say that you are doing something that's meant for, for bipolar people in the, who are computer coders. Let's say, I'm just making that up. Like, some like piece of code, different code snippet. It would be a great title for that. Because they would, they would, I'd be that and immediately know that's us. Thank you. I'm going to think more women with my, yeah, thanks, Nicole, for the ideas. But yeah, I'm going to think, but no, thanks, thanks so much. That was like super helpful just to like get more, get more clarity on that. And then these calls are always helpful. So thanks, Eric. I'm sure. We are all about podcasts that fall into that category of one. Jeremy, I did see you had your hand up. I'm not sure if you. Yeah. I, well, I feel like maybe you just answered it. Because I've, I've been hearing more and more people talking about onlyness and podcasting. And I don't, you know, I'm, I'm another health and wellness podcast, right? I mean, there's four million of them. And the perspective that we've brought to our show has always been that we are not, you know, the beach body professional with the training program and the nutrition plan. And, you know, we don't, we don't have a thing to sell you to help you lose 20 pounds. We're a couple guys on a mission to take care of better care of ourselves. And we're trying to help other guys do that. And so it's really hard to find our onlyness other than, hey, we're not trying to sell you something. We're not experts. We're just a few steps ahead. And so I, I guess I don't know if I'm asking you to help me niche that down, but I guess how important is it to find that onlyness? And do we have to have that thing? And do you think we found it in just being, you know, honest guys that are a couple steps ahead of whoever's listening? Hard to imagine that that's you've got it with just that. There's a different, but that doesn't mean you're like off track. This means there's a different way of framing it that makes sense. Yeah. Like an example is not a podcast. Actually, it's a YouTube channel where I follow, I enjoy camping, I enjoy, like, going to do it. And it's like, this is Sky Dan was a really fun channel who just tries gear out and he's not an expert. He just water purports water all over it. And then in the process learns, like, there's actually a rating for tank water proofness, right? And like, this is legitimately, he's learning this. So he literally is. You're talking about a couple steps ahead. It's like, he's talking about the gear, I mean, he's also talking about his journey. It's about, hey, I'm ahead of you in this. It's like, you learn from my experience too, not just what I've learned. And it's like, it's a bit more of a, yeah, that's largely what we know as we, it's always an interview. So we always have somebody who actually knows what they're talking about. And we will do the interview. And then we sort of add context of, you know, this is the thing we struggle with. This is one solution you can consider to try and do better at it, you know, bring in the interview. And then some sort of, you know, what are the key takeaways from that interview? And here's how to improve your life. And in doing so, you know, we always try and imagine, you know, ourselves 10 years ago, when we started our own journey, that's the guy we're talking to. The guy who's in his 30s, kind of sick of his own crap wants to do something different, doesn't really know what to do, where to turn. So that's the guy that we're talking to. But what's interesting is it's his wife and his girlfriend that keep showing up and sending us notes saying, Oh, I wish my boyfriend would listen. Oh, I wish my husband would listen to this. And I always just think, yeah, I wish they would do what do you call your podcast? The fit mess, you know, that's not terribly specific. The fit mess could mean a bunch of different things. Yeah. You may want to think what I'm like on something like the folks, I'm you in 10 years. Yeah. Or you are me 10 years ago. Yeah. Yeah. Something that's like, there's a little bit more talk to that like, and then, you know, that may be something that kind of, because you know, the reason I focus so much on descriptions and the reason I focus so much on titles, it is because, you know, open your phone and open a podcast app and look at the just the immediate just bang of just stuff. Yeah. And is this scrolling through or if you're like, like listeners also like it is that that ribbon of other things are like, how are you going to get a chance to break through that unless you're just being super clear about what you're delivering? I gave a similar analogy to somebody of the day. I was, I was driving through this town where I'm new in this area. And there's this store that I've driven by a hundred times. It's called marks. No idea what they said. I had to hear a radio ad from someone like, oh, it's a department store like, oh, I literally, I never would have walked in the door, never would have given it a second thought because what the hell is marks? And so I've been trying to apply that to when I talk to other podcasters, be super clear about what the title is. Otherwise, nobody's going to hit play. When I go down the street, when I'm going to actually down the highway here, I pass the man cave store. No question what's in the man cave. Exactly what's in there. Yep. I have I want a pool table. I want a dark board. I want something with a beer lug line. Right. I'm going to the man cave store. And so, you know, but when there's, if there's 50 stores lined up and they're all called marks or Henry's or, or it's some sort of like elect, you know, a league or something. You know, whenever that, some sort of like store sounding name doesn't make any sense. Yeah. How are you going to bust through and figure out what stores are right with you to go to if you need something and podcasting again, like, you know, it's all about connecting to community. And I think that just, so just a little bit of advice for you have never heard your podcast at all. It's really an editorial, humility is a really sticky editorial comment or, or perspective to take. Of like saying, look, I don't have anything figured out. I'm a seeker like you are. I'm in a different stage of my journey, but I'm just as much of a seeker as you are. Yeah. And I'm learning right with you. Yeah. That's a really, that's a really powerful editorial position that people look at and they, they, people trust humility. Yeah. And that's where that's where we've been from, it's coming from day one is just the right. We don't know if you're like, hey, I figured it out better than you have or on a step a couple of steps ahead of you, that can seem a little bit like I'm a different level than you. Right. And that's why people are seeking out. We're seeking out some of you's like, you know, I, I, I, I have, I just happen to have a podcast. I'm a seeker like you. Yeah. Okay. I like that. That's helpful. Cool. Thank you so much for your time. Appreciate it. Sure. Yeah. Fantastic. Just chock full of so much good information. I think our next raised hand is Lydia. So I've got a podcast I'm just starting off and it is all about Kansas City Business Centers and how to get them connected. So it's connect KC and just how to get, how to get them just networking, I guess you could say. So getting to know more about different businesses and so forth. And I'm a, I'm a life coach. So I'm just wanting to get into their mindset and see what hurdles have they gone through. How can they help other business owners that maybe in the same places they are or maybe just a step ahead and how can they, how can they help? So or even ones that are struggling, just give a breath of fresh air and some motivation to them. So anyways, what are your thoughts about that connect KC as, or do I need to niche down even more and be more specific as towards what kind of companies and so forth. So if they were all to say to you something like it's Kansas City is that we said KC stands to. Yeah. Kansas City. Is there something they would all say to you that you think unites them outside of their geographic location? Not necessarily. I don't think so. I think I'll get a mixed bag of things. It's an if you start producing this yet or no, I haven't. So I find my microphone down here because it's not plugged in, but it's, it's hanging right above my head because I moved it after I did an interview earlier that it's like hanging around my head waiting for the fall or a continent for that. But why so a small business owner is incredibly time poor and incredibly has so many demands on their attention their time. Why would they want to listen to this podcast? Good. Good. Good question. I guess I need it. They're, if you're really trying to do it by Kansas City, what are the unique things that are happening that they would care about that they want to like, you know, doing business in the state of Missouri or doing business in Kansas City, or like regulatory problems, they're really common. The food services being Kansas City, or the new development, how that can affect business against it. It's like, you know, like, like that kind of stuff I think is really like, if you, if you really want to be for people in Kansas City, make it about Kansas City, like what do they care about? What trouble? And then, you know, there's a great use of podcasting is just to share pain of like, you know, we have to deal with this and we're united in dealing with this. And oh, it doesn't matter if I own a independent pharmacy or a nightclub, or I'm a home health care service. Right? And this is like, like labor shortage or the, you know, which is for a unique their labor situations unique as in most places, you know, like, also, they're like, what are they talking about that they want to talk about to each other? And how can you not just provide an avenue for them to talk or to, to talk about the issues, but to come up with solutions and ideas? A lot of times when dealing with entrepreneurs or business owners or people who are starting new things up, it's often like, here's some, let me tell you my cocktail party version or my brunch version of my story, in which I come out looking really good at the end. And all the adversity I experienced, I came up with a perfect solution implemented and worked perfectly. I mean, I hear that story so many times right now, we're producing a podcast, which is focusing on social justice entrepreneurs. And the theme of the podcast is, let's talk about everything you screwed up. That's it. We don't want to hear how great success it is when you screw up, like what was the worst mistake you made? And that's a great story, right? Yeah. And, you know, and so is, and, and, and other social justice entrepreneurs can hear that and relate to that. Go, yeah, I get that. I totally get that. And, and something I just did some free consulting on last year was a podcast for election poll workers. It was just for other election poll workers. As you can imagine, with all this been going on about stolen elections and so on and so forth, they got lots to talk about, they have a lot to talk about. And they feel very alone, they feel very much like knowing in my government, knowing in my community appreciates or understands what we're trying to do or what's involved with it. And yet, when you get the person from this, this community talking to the person from this, they recognize that and they feel, wow, you know, I'm not the only person who's struggling with this. And when I hear about somebody else's struggle, I learn from it too, right? And so, yeah, so that, I think it's something to keep in mind too. It's not, if you just say, hey, let's network, it's like, I'm busy, I don't have time for it. Hey, here's a space where, you know, you get it, right? I would say, like, even though I'm a podcast production company, I'm a small business owner with 12 employees, right? And when I walk into the shop, the bakery downtown, and I talk to the owner there, I share a lot with her because she's a small business owner, trying to keep things going during the pandemic. It has problem with that. Yeah. Trying to make sense with other small business owners in a way I never did before. I started my voice. So, there's so much that they can connect. It's funny, you mentioned the pandemic, because I actually thought about throwing that in post pandemic, how did it affect you? What did you, what did you come out learning and what made you better? Well, what was the worst mistake you made during the pandemic? Yeah, what was the worst mistake you made? So maybe I will go that way, because that's where my, where my head's been telling me, Like, how did you make it through this? Like, you've been around so many years. How did you make it through it versus Joe Schmo over here? You know, so anyways, I'll play around with that a bit. Yeah, you know, and remember what I said to the last gentleman, that vulnerability is very sticky. It is an editorial position that lots of people will listen to vulnerability and they respect vulnerability. And you're actually, when you make yourself vulnerable, your expertise and trust increase too. Yeah, for sure, it's transparency. People like that. Sure. Thank you so much. It's not just transparency. It's being transparent and showing that, yeah, I'm trying to figure this out too, just like you. Yeah, cool. Thank you. I appreciate it. Fantastic. Love that. Kathy, I think you have another question for us. Hearing all these questions about naming the show and the importance that you place on it, I had a question about the names, my show, because I was considering changing it. So I would love to hear your feedback. Should I just tell you the name and have you guess on what it would be or would you like to hear more background? So the title is called the Purpose Filter. The Purpose Filter. The Purpose Filter. So tell me why, so what's that? Yeah, Vita, 10 words. Yes, so, yes. The 10 word description is it's a podcast that helps living people apply dying lessons before it's too late. I love that first. Is that 10 words? That's 10 words on the dot. Damn, that's a good one. That's really, really impressive for you. But the purpose, what was the name of the title in? The Purpose Filter. As in like, kind of using the lens of dying as a filter for how we live our lives now with intention and purpose. So that was the reasoning behind why I chose it. And I'm also not entirely. The Purpose Filter. Yeah, yeah. So just to remind people, you know, I tend to be very unfiltered in my response to things. So please don't be offended if I say, if I say, like, I don't like this or something like that. The Purpose Filter sounds like a self-help seminar. It's not serving you as well as that 10 word description serving you. Right. I listen to that 10 word description and I want to hear that show. I want to hear it, right? So how can you borrow some of that moxie and put it into your title? Mm-hmm. Yeah, I was thinking like, I don't know, live as if you're dying. Like that sort of thing. And that's a bad, that's actually a great title. That's a bad, that's actually a great title. Seriously. Yeah. And then the other thing is that I'm also like, dying, that's great. Yeah, I'm also a end of life physician. I'm also a life coach. So like part of that is, you know, putting that all together. So that's kind of where my head has been trying to, yeah, figure that out. And if you had a choice between the Purpose Filter or live as if you're dying, 105 out of 100 times, I would pick live as if you're dying. Yeah, okay. And this is an idea of like how much more evocative title that is, especially given what you're trying to do. I think first of all, it sounds like a great idea for a podcast. It's not just a great 10 words thing. It was another great idea for a podcast. And who are you targeting at? So the, right now it's, it's female professionals who essentially, because that's who the podcast is meant to also be a way to funnel into my life coaching business and eventually beyond and all that stuff. And so that would be female professionals who, you know, feel stuck and want to feel like themselves again by applying these lessons of the dying. So the life coaching thing is very honest of you to admit that that's a goal for you and it should, there's nothing wrong with that at all. I think that's a natural byproduct to posting this. Like I put out a newsletter like we mentioned earlier and I give away a lot of free advice and give away a lot of free advice. I never once have asked people, would you like to hire me? And yet I have a lot of business like it has resulted that from companies and so on and so forth. And could do more, right? Like if you present yourself as someone who is a great convener of ideas and stories and people and is empathetic and people are gonna gravitate towards you and when they do, they can learn about the other things you do. I do a podcast with a relationship therapist named Esther Perrell, where should we begin? It's a huge podcast, right? And Esther never mentions how to see her or if there's a, and yet she has 1500 people in the way to let's just see her, right? It's just a natural byproduct of doing that work. You know, her speaker feel like she gets away if we do two podcasts with her, one's about relationships, the other one's about workplaces and she does these things where she talks to co-founders and co-workers and so on and so forth about work and she gets tons and tons and tons of requests to come in and consult with companies about their work culture. She doesn't even try to generate that as a business. Doesn't even really say that that's part of her business and people hear her on that podcast so like I want that woman to help me solve my problems and I think that the same thing would happen to you too. So that's, it's like be the convener, be the person that creates and nurtures the community and people and that kind of stuff will follow. It just does. Okay, yep, that helps a lot. And now I have to blow up my website and prior branding but I'll do it. Thank you. You're having to do it. I just say, I believe, I'm a big believer that most of the obstacles we face are internal like of our own making rather than external and like, oh, it's so hard to produce a podcast. Like so will come to me with a, with a bad 10 word description no clear target of whether audience is and a title that doesn't really say very much and they'll say, wow, being successful in podcasts is so hard. Like, no, it's not, you're the main three problems are you, right? So and sometimes people get so in love with a concept or piece of art or a title or whatever that they're okay with dealing with the fact they won't be, they could be more successful if it made changes that don't want to make changes. They like the way that it's because fun for them to do it that way. That's cool. I appreciate that. Thank you so much. Thank you. All right. So we have about 15 minutes left and we have three questions left. So perfect timing. I'm actually going to start off with one that we kind of talked about a little bit earlier but the person who had submitted it was having trouble accessing the call and that question was sort of one about the future of podcasting. So if you could just briefly touch on that again because that person has since been able, that person Diana has since been able to join the call that would be fantastic and then we'll move on to a few fresh ones. How would I answer that succinctly? I would say there will always be an interest in hearing compelling voices and compelling stories and compelling ideas. Always, always, always. The mechanisms around it will continue to change. They will continue to evolve. You know, spotify and catch about 25% of the podcast downloads globally now. It was 0% five years ago, right? A number of years ago, seven, eight years ago, a podcast required that you downloaded something on your phone, a file on your phone. Most podcasts apps don't do that anymore. They stream them to you because you have pretty much constant commands. The speed of things has changed. The apps are all interfacial change. The players will change like everything around. So I spent three half years working at Amazon and my former boss, Jeff Bezos, was once asked about what's the future going to be like and he said the, in fact, this isn't the book, I think too, but those of you who read the book, he used to say what's not, what trying to create the future is not as interesting as talking about what is not going to change in the future. In an Amazon that's, we've always on price, select comes, we only care about if any idea is going to make it better for us to offer better price, better selection or better service. And when you think from that, and that is never going to change, no matter what happens in the world, the economy, whatever, those are still the three core principles of Amazon, and they won't change. And when you delivery makes total sense when you think about it in that perspective because that's removing friction from service and getting things people faster. And so that's why Amazon makes this huge investment in drones is because that's the, regards what changes the world, that's going to make things easier. So it's coming into podcasting or there's a new app or there's a new service, whatever, it's like what is the most important thing I do and the most important thing you do often is I tell stories, I convene community. Fantastic, thank you for answering that. Thank you so much for touching on the again and day and there was a little bit of a longer answer, I think, given at the beginning of the call so that this will be posted in Kajabi if you want to go back and hear us discuss this question a little bit further. But thank you again, Eric, for touching on that. And actually, we kind of have a follow up question, which is, do you have any thoughts, sort of speaking of the mechanisms and technology that sort of changes? Do you have any thoughts on YouTube and podcasting? That's something we get a lot of questions about. Yeah, I wouldn't worry too much about YouTube and podcasting. This is a 10 or 3 or 4 for YouTube to be engaged in podcasting and they've screwed all the others up and kind of fizzled out. And so there's a pretty high probability that they will screw this up to. Okay, so that's, so I wouldn't worry too much about like in my missing out by not jumping immediately with YouTube and podcasting. That said, I'm going to say something that sounds very contradictory to what I just said. Depending on where you are in the world, YouTube is either the number three, number two, or number one platform for listening to podcasts that lots and lots of people listen to podcasts. Even podcasts have a static image and that's it. They use YouTube as a listening platform. You see a lot of music consumption happening on YouTube too. The people just listen to music on YouTube. Sounds weird, but that's what they want to do. And one thing I know is don't second guess listeners if that's what they want to do, let them do it. So if you're looking at, there's a huge opportunity. So I think my advice is it's a lot of the hosting platforms are starting to build connections to post videos on YouTube. And if you can do that with a click of a button or a semi-automated process, it basically costs you nothing to do outside of the time of sending it up. And you potentially can find more listeners that way. So I don't see anything wrong with it. So what I'm hearing is that YouTube should necessarily be a priority, however, if you can work it into your work flow in a way that's not taking up a ton of time, it's beneficial. Go where the listeners go. And there's a lot of people who listen to podcasts on YouTube. I just wouldn't worry too much about missing the boat or not figuring out how YouTube is trying to establish a presence and let everybody else figure that out and they'll be plenty of time. I have often with new things been really unconcerned with being the first person to do it. When I was at NPR, I often would counsel us against like let's not be there on launch day. Let's kind of let people learn a bunch of lessons and then we'll figure out what to do. And that was an NPR, right? We can do anything we wanted to supposedly. So I was like, let's kind of walk into this slowly rather than rush into it and be the one who's making all the mistakes. Love that. And with an independent creator with very limited amount of time and resources, I just wouldn't get yourself too stressed by what they're doing. Love that. Let other people make the mistakes first. And once everybody else has figured it out, use what they learned. We did have some questions that were sent to me in the chat. Aaron, if you want to message me your question, I'd be happy to ask it. So let me look it up. I haven't had a chance to look at the child at all. So I'm just too busy answering things. So, if anything. No. No problem. No problem. Yeah, I was going to say, Eric's fantastic, super nice. He doesn't fight. But she says she was just jumping in on the same car. Oh, here she is. Aaron. Hi. Yeah, I was just like, everybody was talking about names. And I, hi, sorry. Yeah, you were talking about names. And it was interesting to hear your feedback on that. And as many people in here know, I'm in the process of rebranding. And I mean, I'm pretty much doing it, but it was like, you're here. So I thought I would bring it up. Hi. OK, so the current name of the show is conversations with parents who write. And then what I want to change it to is parents right now, W-R-I-T-E. Parents, right. What do you want to change it to? Parents right now. Parents right now. Conversation with parents who write is not a terrible title. I mean, it depends. You know, what are you trying to do? One of the things I've learned about any kind of parent space. So we produce a kind of insanely popular podcast called Good Inside with Dr. Becky. It's the number one in the family kid's space. Because half a million downloads a month. It's a crazy huge juggernaut show. When we look at the data from that show, it just shows you, anybody who needs convincing how time poor parents are. The first minute of that show is a huge amount of it. And then the second minute of the show, it's like half the same. People are listening the first minute to decide, is this relevant interesting to me? If it's not, they go away. Like, my kid doesn't have time, so I'm just don't care. Oh, gone, right? Or my kid does say no a lot, so I'm going to stay and listen. So they are breaking the media. They just don't have time to deal with subtlety. It's like, we get to be very super clear with them and tell them what you're doing upfront, and they'll decide if they have time for you or not. And one of the things we're changing with Dr. Becky, who's already insanely popular, is we're having her switcher intros to say, this episode is about 25 minutes long. And at the end of that 20 minute, five minutes, you'll have three tips on potting training that you didn't have before, like, make a promise. I talk about this a lot with podcasters lately. Make a promise. And I think that this is apropos. Nothing to do with your title. It just happens. You just happen to Aaron to talk about the kids or the parent space, certain parents. And one thing I've learned with working with Dr. Becky and parents for the past couple of months has been make a promise, fulfill that promise, and make that promise something that they could see the value of immediately. And so it's like, you know, and as literal as in a next half hour, at the end of the half hour, you're gonna know how to do the next time someone does this, you'll know how to do this better. Something that someone I was just editing the other day was about gun violence and mass shootings. And the mass shootings are something that nobody is happy about. Everyone wish they could be less and no one knows what to do. And 45 minutes from now, you'll have a couple tips that may not prevent a mass shooting, but might help identify somebody who's in trouble and needs an intervention, who might be something to that. And so, okay, I'll give you 45 minutes for that. Okay, I'm here. Let's learn. No, because I don't know. I just kind of went on a rant there about, because you just happened to talk about dudes and parents. But the literalness of your title is not, don't make a complicated, you know? Parents right now is a little bit more complicated, even though it's fewer words, it's a little bit more complicated. It's absolutely interesting. So that sounds like advice to stick with conversations with parents, you're right, even though it's all mouthful. Yeah, but it's pretty, pretty damn clear. All right, well, I appreciate that. Thanks, I'm glad I asked. Yeah, also, sometimes people talk about me braiding or I want to make a change. I want to make, you know, get a different co-host or I want to taste it. I'm like, I love the energy and self-reflectiveness involved in wanting to do an action like that. And sometimes you can channel that into something that would be more impactful for you than just coming up with a different neighbor, different logo, different artwork. Yeah. Like all that stuff is important and that's saying it's not important. But sometimes it's like, okay, I have yet to meet a podcast or go ahead and time on their hands, right? Like I don't know what to do with myself. Everybody fills up their time, they have available and they probably spend more time on the project than they should. Everybody, all levels up to full-time professionals. So you really have to prioritize it. What is the most best use of my time? Yeah. Yeah. Lauren had suggested even just shortening down to parents who write rather than conversations with at the beginning. That's the artworks, parents who write? Yeah. I remember actually, I originally looked at that and the URL was stolen. There was already a view. So I was like, oh, gosh darn. But I guess for a while. Is parents who write podcasts in use? Oh, that's a good point. I always say, I always put the word podcast at the end of it. Like we have a podcast called This Is Dating that we did earlier this year that URL was gone, but this is Dating Podcast was available. There you go. That's a good point. Thank you. Podcast show, it was all things that you can add to it that, or another one is another trick that I've seen a lot of people use is use.fm, which a lot of people use that. So it's a very underused suffix or whatever that is. And so that might be something to be used to. Yeah, I get what you're saying. Because I try to avoid the cuteness factor. Yeah. I'm not a big fan of cute. Yeah, it was more the idea of the premise of the podcast is to help parents make time for the writing in themselves. It's a great idea for podcasts, by the way, too. Thank you. Yeah, I'm trying to, you know, because parenting is hard. Parenting is hard and writing is hard. Yeah. Writing about parenting is really hard. And that's a niche. It's a niche. It's a good niche. Thank you. People are going to feel alone in that pursuit. People go learn from each other. Like if they're supported. You are convening a community of people who need each other and can learn from each other. That's a really good, that's a really good thing. You've got it all going on there. It's good. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Eric. I'm going to hit you with one last question before we have got to get going, which is, and I realize this is super general, so it might be a little tough to answer. But the question I have is, do you have any general advice you can give to independent podcasters who are struggling to gain traction with their show or consistently grow their show? Any sort of overall, I'll last say, I'm in the group that addresses that. So I think a lot of the things that you learn in these workshops and this is gathered to the greater show group are probably readily and greatly wise and smart. One thing I counsel everybody to do, and this is from people who are independence making a podcasters or models who are living in up to major media corporations that I give advice to, is there's only one metric for successive matters that's the one that matters to you. There's no, I have to have 10,000 downloads or I have to have 100,000 downloads or I have to have a million downloads or 10 million downloads. Every show has a different metric for success. And sometimes it's downloads, sometimes it's other things. I know someone who does a podcas for cancer survivors and people who, for that very special community of people who are cancer survivors, and they have a different world experience than many of the rest of us do. And so his metric for success is not downloads, he pays no attention to downloads. Like he'll get an email every once in a while, he'll even say the podcast. I'd love to hear your story about how this podcast helped you and occasionally someone will write in and say thank you, I really feel seen, I feel heard, I feel part of something and it's like that makes him put him on a high. Like that's great measure of success. So I think the advice I would give to you is think about what success really means. If success means a certain number of downloads you can get advertising, so to make money, sure, right. But that's not the stuff that makes your heart beat fast. That's not the reason you started doing it was to, you know, get a certain number of downloads that's statistic. There was a reason you wanted to do this. And just focus on that and make sure that you realize that just because somebody else is getting 5,000 downloads in episode or a million downloads in episode doesn't mean you have to in order to be successful. When I was doing the book tour for Make Noise, which is right from the pandemic, I went to Philadelphia, tell the story quickly, I know we gotta go. I went to a bookstore in Philadelphia or actually was a library in Philadelphia and did a book event there. And there's two people came up and introduced themselves to me and said we have a podcast. And I could tell from them that they wanted me to ask what their podcast was. And I said, well, what's your podcast? And they said, we have a podcast that we're making for our colleague who's on maternity leave, who wants to do all the office gossip, but she's on maternity leave. And so we make this when we talk about the office gossip so she can keep up with things. And I said, so you have a target audience of one and you have got one listener and you are absolutely successful. And they said, yes, they were delighted. And I said that you are more successful than most podcasts because you have defined your audience, you found your audience, you're 100% successful at that. So think like that, think like those two. That is so cool. I love that. I love that podcast idea. Hopefully their co-workers don't find it though. It was you to go to the beginning of the pandemic side. But the colleague is back at work or something's happened since then. Absolutely. Well, thank you so, so much, Eric. You dropped some gold for everybody. I know you're a big help. So we really appreciate you guys coming on. Do you have anything else you want to plug one last time? Your newsletter? No, there's a link in the chat somewhere to the newsletter. Feel free to sign up. It's a very creative focus. It's very kind of like, I try to make it so people are big companies and it's small and intense and always find things that they're interested in. So I would encourage you to sign up for that.