BONUS EPISODE: Podcasting Master Class With Eric Nuzum

Hey, Kevin Treadlin 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 at 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. Eric was also gracious enough to stand in for me during a coaching session in within the Grow the Show podcast accelerator this past July. So we've got about 115 clients in the Grow the Show podcast accelerator and we host two hour long coaching sessions every single week and this past July I took a break. I took a vacation. It was the first vacation I took in almost two years. It was awesome and Eric Newsom was gracious enough to hold a guest coaching session while I was gone and that is what you are going to be hearing today. Now originally my plan was to chop this up and you know just share little bits and pieces of this session publicly but when I came back from vacation and I listened through and I reviewed the entire two hour coaching session I was blown away at how pretty much every single minute of it was super super valuable. So that's what we're sharing with you here today. Here 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. So it's almost two hours long certainly you know chop it up come back to it you know maybe make some notes on what is said when because you're going to want to save this because it's going to help you no matter where you are in your current podcasting journey 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 right here and now let me know what you think. Hello everybody with us today we have the illustrious Eric Newsom all you guys got his book when you join the course Eric helps start MPR's podcasting efforts in 2005 and he has been the driving force behind some of the most popular shows. So this format of this coaching session I think as you guys already know is going to be slightly different than usual a lot of you guys submitted questions ahead of time and so what I'm going to do is I'm going to prompt you to ask your question for Eric and if you forgot it I know where he's going to have the questions with me when he's going to do his best to answer them. So with that I think we are going to start with one of our first questions from Kate Jetmore. Kate was asking she's saying that you tend to fall on the creative side of podcasting and that you really enjoy those areas but you find the areas of marketing and promotion to be exhausting and that you find you quickly burn out there. So your question was really how can you best stay the course of those key elements of the process that are unsustainable for you or that are more difficult for you. So hello to all and Kate that's a great question and you know the funny thing is your far from alone. We deal with this even in our company of when we started Magnificent Noise which was a little over three years ago what I hear from a lot of people who are independent producers is they feel they spend so much time on the marketing and distribution side that they don't get to do the creative the fun stuff and I don't want to know I just want to make my show up right I don't want to care it's changed so much in the past three years the you know three years ago when I when we started Magnificent Noise there was four or five hundred thousand podcasts in the world now they're over two million there's a new podcast every thirty seconds every thirty seconds so we even talking there's been three three or four podcasts that are popped up even since we started talking about this and so you know it's in some ways it is so difficult because even though the the the tsunami of new podcasts coming into the space has grown so exponentially the number of emotional opportunities or ways to engage with distributors like tune in or Spotify or Apple podcasts those opportunities haven't increased so you're seeing more and more people fight for those spots and you're also seeing less and less space for independent producers so where you know there's ten slots open up to both things and you've got all these massive companies putting out all these huge projects starting celebrities and everything else where's the room for the independent person to kind of find their people and I know I have two pieces of advice I think the first piece of advice is oddly see if you can find someone who gets as excited about the distribution side as you get about the creative side and see if there's a way to partner with them those people do exist in the world they're trying to find they love podcasting they advocate and evangelize about podcasting and they just are trying they're trying to find a place in the industry too and they are looking for creatives to partner with I'd be very careful about some of these arrangements because some people may be a little too opportunistic or really kind of looking to kind of make you know make more than what they should be off of your podcast or own partner which is a ridiculous thing for for distributed to do for something you pay to create so that's number one is to find other DIY people who really can partner with you to lighten some of this load so you don't have to worry about it or for DIY network or small organization that specializes in this and they those places do exist and the second thing is you kind of have to embrace that this is your job that it's not your job is not just to create unfortunately it'll be great if we can sit and create but you know the connection to the audience and the connection to the process makes you a better creator because you're in a more informed place you're in a more informed place from understanding like audiences respond to if you're sitting there watching those download numbers come in you're like wow I put out this episode people it's nuts and I found this episode and nobody seemed to care or I've got a string of nobody seeming to care and asking yourself those questions why why am I not seeing the response that I want or expect and that can lead to some introspection that can you know even simple things like the way you describe your podcast or the title of your podcast or the artwork there's all this is of nothing to do with creation that end up impeding creation if you don't get them right and so as a creator and a proprietor you almost have to own that that isn't in a skateboard part of the work and frankly you don't want to give it away because no one's going to care about it the way you do I think that's fine that's a really long and it's fine we'll give everyone that longer an answer but it's a big topic and it's and the reason I wanted to spend more time on it was it's something that people really struggle with right now because people are coming to podcasting they're super passionate about the space they have ideas they want to connect to an audience they're super jazz they put out the world and they just don't know how to get that audience absolutely that's a great answer and I think there are some truths that maybe a lot of people needed to hear yeah but we're going to move on to something a little bit more specific and this is Julian Alvarez's question and it is about the interview process I might not remember it entirely but I think it was it was something along the lines of the storytelling component of how do you identify like a good story versus a bad story what questions do you ask in order to be able to decipher like what what components of the story actually matter and at some context I was initially with my podcast about entrepreneurship focusing more on the startup the problem that they're solving and whatnot but then I realized like hey stories really important let me add more context more death and understanding into this entrepreneur and how they got there so it's like I don't know how much time to spend on the story how much time to spend on the startup and also like what components of the story actually matter and how to craft that so I think the most important thing is to ask what is this person what is their expertise and whether they really have to say and sometimes the answer to that is not what it initially appears to be so I'll give you an example there's a series I'm working on right now for Spotify that's being hosted by a Fortune 50 CEO talking to people in his life who have inspired him as a business leader right so you think that if we were all these questions for them about you know what makes a good leader how do you take risks and we found during the conversation those are really incredibly boring and very much like anyone else would answer and in between some of these questions these two guys would talk and they're like you remember the story you told me about when you were 14 you drove across the the the United States with a with a case with a coke and you just basically had to get across the country in three or four days you basically drove all the way across is like yeah yeah yeah remember that story when you did you know you were doing donuts and your church parking lot and the minister came out one to ride with you and like you know like all these interesting stories they had which ended up so we ended up recutting the whole interview afterwards because we realized we were asking the wrong questions instead we were asking all these kind of generic business questions but what really made these two interesting was the things that were younger in their life they forgave them the passion and drive they've kind of carried into their professional life and that was fascinating so we recut the whole thing we retitled it we we actually went back and re-recorded a couple of intros so we would make sense and kind of made it much more about a passion but about business even though there are tons of business lessons in it so it's like really asks you so what makes this person interesting and two of the things I would say is number one is there's a chapter in the book on interviewing which can be summarized in one sentence don't pretend that you're interested in somebody ask the questions you are really interested in what do you want to know not what do you think an interviewer asks this interview subject what are the right questions or whether the cool questions or what would someone I admire like what would Stephen Cole there or what would let's her hold ask like no forget that what are you interested in knowing from this person because you just have to make the assumption that if you're interested in it other people who follow your podcast are going to be interested and for me the litmus test that I use so often I did it last night in my family dinner table I am editing a work out series of CNN and we're doing an episode about daylight savings time and it like tons of data about daylight savings time it's actually a crazy topic of everybody hates it yet no one can figure out what to do with it and so I kind of pitched it to dinner table I kind of pitched what we were doing in the episode because we're going to start ending this thing and I just watched my family's reaction my wife's reaction who has does not suffer any kind of polite interest in our dinner table it's like if this is boring you know people just aren't playing with their peas and pasta right they're not going to be pretending to be interested and I was like watching her like what did she gravitate towards what bring the things interested her and I do this with people all the time I just tell them what I'm working on and I watch where they react and I learned so much about what's interesting because everything's interesting to me but it's not necessarily interesting with somebody else and so if I'm really focused on that audience like what about daylight savings time is interesting with somebody else I can see what they key in on and then I got up this morning and I edited it as if I was pitching this to my wife as if I was like and like and and I think that is a really great inexpensive like it doesn't cost anything unless you're buying coffee for somebody and you're doing this way to get to understand the story you're telling because when you hear the words roll out of your mouth you will learn very quickly what's boring and what's not you'll learn very quickly where they get bored and where they don't and you have to do this to a truth teller who's going to be bored and not try to pretend that they're not so those three things I think if you do them you're going to be in pretty good shape amazing yeah so it's really about having that story or basically identifying what the story of this person is and telling that story to other people and depending on how they react that that gives you a really good signal as to whether this might be interesting or not I do this all the time literally several days a week I like I'm starting off calling you know the little tits you have at the beginning of a phone call or bidding of zoom meeting I'm like I want to tell you something I'm inter I'm talking to the most interesting person in three days and they have pitch them a little bit of the story and you see what they they feedback to you or where they seem to be politely interested rather than really interested you know like you're kidding they do that like yeah they do and and that is so informative because otherwise you're sitting there for the microphones like this void in front of you of like you're hoping that you can project out things that are interesting and focus some things are interesting and but if you've got some like live focus groups you can do with your friends and family and colleagues why not thank you are awesome thank you you are welcome so I'm going to kind of pivot back and you briefly touched on this before but we have a question from Camico James and I think it's a great one but her question was with so many influencers and famous people starting their own podcast and getting these million dollar deals what can people who start out without those advantages due to keep up that's a great question and and it's a subject in conversation not just among independent newer podcasters but a lot of my clients are big companies and they have the same problems the same problems going back to Kate's problem about how do I create market at the same time so everybody's trying to figure this out right and it's just such a changing space I think I would not so here's the deal with those million dollar deals or multi-million dollar deals and influencers and all this kind of stuff so many of them the actual place they occupy in the podcast space does not match the hype or the press coverage or the dollar figures that are being paid the actual podcast comes out and nobody hears it or not many people listen or what really happens often even with former presidency the United States and big leaders and so and so forth so it is people listen to an episode or two and then they just kind of forget about it right and it's because a lot of these things are not being well we're not being lovingly created they're just like assuming that if I put a famous person in front of a microphone the people are going to gravitate so that that does happen for an episode or two but then it kind of fades away rarely doesn't kind of work out and when it does work out they're kind of building a little network of of influence around their podcast a great example is fact shepherd and armchair expert where there's a there's the armchair ease or the people who listen to that podcast kind of fall from to very tight and very loyal group of listeners but they're kind of like off on an island in the podcast of the world you know there's the there really aren't as many of them as you think there are even though there are a lot and I think that it's very easy to look at that and say I can never be that so should I even try and I think that's understandable and ultimately very fixable because you are never going to outback shepherd jack back shepherd you're never going to out Joe Rogan Joe you're never going to out ester parole ester parole you're not going to be one of those famous people maybe if you are and that's what you want to do maybe you will be I'm not saying but let's assume you aren't so that mean you shouldn't do it no you should right size your expectations is what you should do there are many people in podcasting many thousands of people in podcasting that have figured out that it doesn't matter how many people listen it's the right people listening you can actually have a very small number of people listening loyal supporters of your program and make things work for example there's a very famous article that was written or essays written several years ago to talk about true a thousand true fans and which makes the argument about if you have a thousand true fans who will give you a hundred dollars each a year that's a hundred thousand dollars and so that's more the way you should be thinking is not necessarily on the financial side but on the influence and loyalty side like where are like to start where are my first two or three hundred people who are going to listen to everything that I put out because they exist in the world I care who you are they're there so how do I build how do I get to them and how do I build a relationship with them and this worry about that don't worry about Dak Shepherd in his twenty million dollar check worry about how do I get two or three hundred people who really like what I do and then use those two or three hundred people to help you build the next two or three hundred people they use those four or six hundred people to build the next thousand people and that's how you grow that's that's the only thing that's been true about podcasting from the first day to today is that that's how you build an audience is pretty much small steps at a time and that loyal audience will help you I mean there's an example I used in the book but I didn't think I really fully understood or appreciated when I put it in the book which was about a client I had once who had a podcast that had several thousand downloads and couldn't figure out how to kind of go to the next level look why don't you ask your audience to help you if you like what do you mean like why don't you just say look for this podcast continue to grow I need more listeners could you just tell one person about this podcast do you think would like it tweet about it send them an email text message what Facebook posting doesn't matter just tell one person that text was them six weeks later his downloads were up thirty five percent and he couldn't figure out why I'm like I know exactly why because you asked he's like that can't be it can't be that I asked people to help me and they felt to help me and again I don't know they they're loyal to you they want to help you they want you to succeed and they want people to have the same experience with your podcast they have and so they do that evangelism and it works so that's uh so you're you're can we go to your question which is so important it's it's the short version is ignore what they do and think about what you need to do in order to build that kind of basis that you'll build from yeah absolutely I think that was a really helpful answer I know a couple of people are saying so in the chat the next question we have and he just joined I think he's in here somewhere it is from Brock Hendrix so Brock kind of getting more specifically into growing your podcast and monetization Brock asking for some specific tips on pitching brands and partners so if there's any specific language that you've found helpful or that you think that partners like to see or any value propositions um I think you know one of the good things about podcasting generally is podcast work when they solve a problem for a listener that problem can be I want to laugh that problem could be I want to learn more that problem could be I feel alone or a problem could be I just want to know there are other people the worlds who have the same experience that I do or you know all those type of things and I don't think that is different when you're looking at the connection between podcasts podcast supporters and the audience that you create like if you look at those three points on a spectrum like what line can you draw between all three what what what am I doing for the audience what am I doing for the brand that's sponsoring me and what does that brand do for an audience like how like I think about think about it from a problem solving perspective and there may be a more fluid way to approach this I'm literally kind of ripping all this up in my head but when I talk to sponsors which is not all that often does happen sometimes the pitch I'm trying to make is in the first question I asked is who are you trying to reach who is who are you trying to who's this campaign trying to reach or who in general do you think your audience is because most brands would be happy to tell you the elevator pitch and who they think they're speaking to the next thing out of your mouth should be let me tell you why I can talk I can help you connect to those people you know um if you're trying to reach if I have a podcast for for for for um Jen a millennial and Gen Z uh mothers or Poole entering in a motherhood from that like and that's who your audience is like that's who I'm speaking to and let me tell you the problems I'm solving for them and let me tell you how how we together brand can solve problems for them they kind of can connect you to them in a meaningful way and again talk about how um you know think of podcasting is a very active engage loyal audience which is true it's true it's an active choice it's different than being on it when you listen to the radio you press the button and stuff comes out at you it's going to an entire room it's not just going to you it's like you know or to a car or wherever but a podcast is so intentional it is I want to listen to this thing at this moment and usually I'm the only one to get to hear it right and that's a very intimate connection and you can talk about there's lots of data out about the response rate of podcasting and how it's such a great medium for for brands and don't assume they know this they may have heard that podcasting is a really exciting medium to advertise and reach an audience but they may not know how it works or why so you need many to do some of that basic sales but again it's like what problem are you solving for them rather than if you if you get into the transactional space immediately of I'm going to charge you a $25 CPM and I do an average of this many downloads which means that I'm basically going to give you 60 seconds of time in my podcast and you're going to reach extra number of people you're going to pay me this if that's where you're at and that transactional mode you're going to lose because somebody else is going to come in and say let me tell you how I can help you right and I think that is and talking about that loyal connection of the audience those are the things that people register with and you know one of the things I think is is risky but very it's on one hand is risky and on the other hand it's extremely low risk is if this is a brand that you want to have a relationship with like let's say you're doing that a young parenting podcast this is a maker of organic diaper care products right and you just don't want them to buy a spot or two you want them to like have a year-long relationship are they right you would check and they're the exclusive sponsored for a year and sorry I'm having trouble hearing sorry I'm supposed to press button on my last the and you might have like a big relationship with them set up something where you can do some sort of test or trial right because they look why don't you give me an offer code and I'll put it up for three weeks just go that's it you need a favor for it I'll do it for two weeks see what you get and see what happens and then tell your audience boy it's really important that you you connect with this and you help me and the other part of that equation then too is also it's not just what you say the sponsor it's what you say to the audience about the sponsor you I think it's much more effective less focus on um you seeing everything the sponsor wants and giving this glowing endorsement for the for the um uh sponsor but when you say um this company is supporting this podcast because they believe that mothers should be better informed and mothers should have more choices and when you're supporting them you're supporting me like that transcends the you know I don't know how many socks or or various things I have run my house that I bought to support a podcast and that I need socks maybe probably ask my wife should probably say I do need new socks but I make that purchase because I believe in that podcast and I can get something it sounds a problem for me I get new socks and it also goes to support them which is important and really working that angle too so so the sponsorship actually delivers for the sponsor and they're like whoa where do I sign I'm giving really long answers I hope I'm not boring you guys to death at this no I just had someone message me they're like I hope you're recording this my hand is tired I've been writing so everybody is really even enjoying themselves by every day's quiet good that's good I've been editing their day this is the first time I've really spoken to other humans today so I'm really really happy to not be looking at a page and this is some some interview cuts so yeah okay yeah absolutely so for our next question this individual actually is not here they had worked today but they did submit their question this is from Jess Lorion and Jess has a specific question so I don't know Eric how much because I think this is more of Kevin's signature part of the program how much you know about TD or targeted daily engagement that a lot of our students do I can guess I guess what it is but let's just go and see what we can help yeah so pretty much TD to put it in short is mindful social media engagement so our students will go to watering holes that they specifically pick out or they identify that people would be a great fit for their audience and they meaningfully engage with people in those watering holes and then those people will usually end up clicking up to their profile maybe they'll be able to drop a mention of the podcast and that's how a lot of our students are able to start to build an audience outside of people that know them already so something that Jess is having a little bit of trouble with is she says she's been really good at building a social media audience but she's having trouble converting that audience into downloads on her podcast so she's like you know I'm doing all this social media engagement and I'm really confident my social media growth has been great but she hasn't been converting those into as many downloads as she'd like first off as TD concept sounds really bright it's just a different spin on what I think a lot of people suggest which is basically how do you build an audience you build them one listener at a time and as odd as that sounds the behavior you do to do that one-on-one interaction that kind of gorilla marketing for like for better term is is incredibly effective and it's contagious too so so I I completely endorse that perspective my first question I would have for her would be to look at what she's posting about the podcast that is to see whether it's really like hey new absurd my podcast up today who cares right right and my mom cares about that not many other people do but can you really turn that tweet or that post into something you know there's an old advertising saying that is sell the sizzle not the steak sell the benefit not the feature so I have a new episode out today is kind of talking about a feature a new episode or I have an interview with Matt and Allison I'm just going to bring another pick up two names um uh that's that doesn't tell you anything on the other hand like um would you like you know how five minutes a day can change your financial health in 10 years something different five minutes a day this episode has a trick that will teach you what you can do in five minutes every day that will make you a richer wealthier person in 10 years more financially stable and that's like well that's interesting I'll maybe I'll click on that to be part of me um very good interrupt and as someone in the chest said that her social media is really good um and it's about the problem she saw so would you say then maybe it would be more about how you specifically word it or specifically tease it or would you even suggest going to people to them I know some people do that I'm gonna found some success with that as well I experiment with everything and see you know there's there's no you know there's no way to know except to try and fail and succeed a friend of mine recently uh put out a video series and he got really upset because he's got a pretty significant TikTok following he's like I told them about the video series nobody went nobody clicked through to to go see nobody like well how did you tell them like I told them one time thirty second it was like a you know thirty second video one time like okay do you know how often people have to hear a message and learn to remember it in advertising it's 3.29 times actually that's like a scientifically proven fact that's why uh there's a whole there's a whole um a lot of work has been done in message retention how long a casual listen how many times the casualister has to hear something before they understand its value that's why when you are looking at Instagram or whenever you see an ad and you click through it you immediately close it and then you see that ad like a bunch more times or why you never see an ad once you see it like 40 times and then eventually you click on it that's why so I think it's there's a whole bunch of reasons it sounds like she does some posting really good stuff like maybe really good stuff isn't really good stuff maybe it is it depends on who she's trying to reach what action she's trying to promote and um I think that's pretty much some it's hard to generalize so I'm giving some general like what are the main uh sins I see being committed in this space and it's usually not really speaking to the benefits or it's not doing it um frequently enough or um regularly enough to to figure out um uh if it's working and then you know with all the stuff it's experiment and test and learn to see what works for you um and PR many years ago we couldn't get people to click through and then we started putting a picture it was just a picture of something associated with the topic in the same tweet all of a sudden the engagement has exploded like I hope you know it didn't it wasn't normal but if you put in another picture then it did it's like you say and the only way you figure this out it was trying and learning and there's very few universals you kind of have to see what your audience is going to respond to I think that's good advice definitely a lot of trial error and just like tweaking those tiny little things it sounds like can make a really big difference on that note I'm going to call on Rosie she submitted a question and I'm gonna have you ask your question just because I think um it's more specific to your podcast um so you'd probably best be able to explain that yes thanks Katie and thanks Eric for being here and my question is super recent so I do remember what it is um so yeah it is specifically about about my podcast which is about um raising awareness on equity diversity and inclusion for businesses and employers and it actually ties into everything that you've been saying which has been gold really for me um because I've been trying to think of how to give the aha to people without being super obvious right so even when you were describing kind of the teasers of how to bring people in or how to get them to know what benefit they're going to get from the podcast I've been um I think I've been maybe two um kind of two obtuse or two on subtle about it because I don't want it to be really obvious like oh if you didn't know this about racism you're going to learn this about racism um the concept of my podcast is about um helping them realize that they had a perspective that they didn't know and so it's a bit of a reveal but now that I'm seeing it's really more of an educational podcast which I didn't think it was at first I'm trying to figure out what kind of format to do that wouldn't necessarily be here's point one two and three and let me recap you learned point one two and three like something that's a bit more engaging so I wondered if you had suggestions for um I guess something more educational where I really want them to take my points away but I don't want it to be just in your face here's a really boring lecture on something and you know now you've learned something here you go there are two things this is a great question thank you I don't get asked that question very much because it's really about how you edit well and and and and I look at editing is something that starts before recording it's not something you do after the recording so much good editing happens before the recording happens and I am a huge fan of two tactics so I will share with you I use them I use them the editor I was doing today I use them one of them I talk so much to people or anything so often where people you know they've got this five minutes of setup setup setup and they've got this golden moment of tape it's like the best tape and the thing I tell them start with the best part start with your best tape start with the hottest things like whoa really like that moment is like that will hook them because the hardest thing to do is to get someone's real attention not to get them to listen because people don't listen as much as your podcast it sounds great and I wish you all the success is an important issue but the truth is even your fans are coming to it and they need to get hooked in you don't want people coming because they're getting an education you don't want people coming in because they think it's the right thing to do you want people to come in and get like immediately something that's like I'm interested what's that about right so start with the best tape then back up and explain and the the reason that works is because you're kind of with a listener saying this is here and and and they're thinking the rest of this is probably going to be interesting if this moment is interesting you know and they need all that context and set to understand that moment a great example so the same series we're doing a daily saving time for CNN we're also talking it's about data and how the data tells us about the world it's coming up next month it's called margins of error the host is actually September it's coming out I keep thinking it's August September it's called margins of error with a guy named Harry Enten who's a data guy on CNN and we did we're doing one on daily saving time we're doing another on cremation because the cremation rate in the United States is skyrocketing in the last generation it's now overtaken burial and by 2038 percent of people will dispose of their body by cremation so very interesting stat and we start off with a funeral director you don't even hear his name the first thing you hear is this funeral director and from Seattle saying you know in our practice nine over 99 percent of people who walk in the door want to be or their families want the body to be cremated when I'm saying 99 percent more than 99 percent I'm saying that of a thousand deaths will have maybe five burials and all the rest of cremation like you don't know who this guy is you don't know what even the topic of the episode is let's read the description or whatever you just know heard this guy say this overwhelming stat about cremation you're like I'm in and then you back up and explain everything I encourage lots of people in this attention star world to not make things mysterious when you start your podcast episode say welcome by the time this episode ends in 26 minutes 35 minutes an hour and a half whatever it is you're gonna know these five things but these are five things you're gonna know because you listen and just stay up front don't hold it back a mystery like oh there's gonna be some really interesting things happening or boy you know boy you just stay tuned because you're gonna learn something tell them what they're gonna learn right we're gonna and it's not it's a little bit more explicit than we're gonna talk about these subjects is you'll walk away knowing these couple things and if that doesn't catch up then nothing's gonna catch them in your lead in that helps so much in kind of making those moments much more impactful because people like two things they like surprise like something you weren't expecting and they like things to deliver on their expectations one of the most damning things I hear of some people I work with we do listener testing where we give it to a couple hundred listeners and we ask them and the damning responses if they read a great description of our podcast they don't think the episodes deliver right you made them a promise that we didn't deliver on that promise and so what promises are you making a front and making sure you deliver on them is important so I think we've had because that's great advice and a couple of people I know in the chat are wondering so it seems like a lot of people start their podcasts with a clip from the show so an interesting like a cold open clip Jane I know you asked this question if you want to speak to it a little bit further and I think she's just asking how that might play into it so yeah this is sort of an editing question Eric but I've tried both approaches where I'll cold open with a teaser clip of the guest and then I've tried another approach where I just begin with a narration and give a summary of what we talk about and I wonder if you if you you know have a preference for either or would suggest kind of either approach I think my answer is I try to avoid tropes as much as possible and formulas as much as possible it's not the kind of formula I want right like how episode opens I think an episode should open however it needs to open you should give yourself that freedom I so if you're looking at a lot of the things I do historically 10 radio hour invisibility far flung with head very few of them have a set format the only thing I've worked on that has like a very clear formula is the SDR4L series where should we begin that if you listen to any episode they follow the same things happen kind of the same order but outside of that most of the things I do if you listen like if you look at the 10 series I did last year called far flung no two episodes open the same way there's not the same structure they don't follow the same format it's because we define format not as a like procedure of like an operating procedure but as an experience like what do I want people to experience right when the CNN series I've mentioned a couple times I just think that was literally working on it before we join the experience we're engineering for is we're going to introduce you to a stat which has been out there in the world it's not like we've uncovered anything new and we're going to show you how that little inconsequential stat tells us tons of stuff about our world whether it's the car color you select what it tells about you or the daylight savings time is something that everybody hates but will never change because no one can agree what to do about it or the change in cremation versus burial or the rigid non-acceptance of age gap relationships even though we're more accepting of other different types of relationships you know all these things it's like you're going to be introduced to the stat you're going to be kind of amazed at the stat that it is what it is it's a strumming case and then we'll tell you what it means but if we finish six episodes and none of them share anything in common as far as how they open some it's it's the host and a buddy talking about the subject sometimes it's all him in the interviews sometimes we're out in the field literally traveling out in the world and we hear sound in the world and sometimes it's all in the studio none of that stuff we don't worry about making that rigid we make it like what are the experience you're trying to create what best does that so if you're talking about a podcast about DEI issues or representation or inclusion for example as a friend that you know what is the right way to get someone in the headspace you want them to right and that is you have to get what I often refer to as real attention someone presses play and they're not really paying attention but what can you do to get them to be like that's what they're thinking about at that time because once you've got some was attention you've surprised them are given something that's better than they were expecting their mind is temporarily open and you can kind of get in there and create memories and ideas and infuse things like that's the point how do we get their mind temporarily like fully open right and the answer will be different for almost every episode you do our next question is from Ellen newhouse and her question is all about it seems prioritization so she's newbie she's loving your podcast and obviously you know priority number one is putting out great content but after that I think and correct me if I'm wrong Ellen you're kind of wondering how should you prioritize your time so like content is number one your podcast is pretty new what are the other parts of being a podcaster and having a podcast business that she should be focused on yeah hi Eric so I'll just say a little bit more about that is that I came to podcasting completely for different reason I my show had been canceled because of COVID in New York and I needed something creative I was desperate and I'm also a healer so I kind of am in two realms and now I'm like oh shit I really want to grow this thing and I really want to monetize it but I'm like oh I you know so I have been just focusing on the interviews and making them really exciting and fun so what would you say would be the top two things because I'm a little overwhelmed well your excitement is great because you have to have passion you have to have enough passion that you would do it for free and it certainly sounds like you do you don't want to do it for free but that's definitely enough passion about that I do this for fun yeah right so and the joy it brings me so I would say those two things any time period of time you put into your production preparing yourself better editing better kind of making it and raising the expectations for you as a producer and host and for the conversations that you hold any any minute you put into that pays off any minute you pay for that and secondly so in life in general and I think this is the only reason I've survived for three years including through a pandemic or any my own company is I compartmentalized things I'm like do I need to worry about this today or is this a tomorrow problem right or is this a next week problem or next month problem and so I'm really good I've just grown very good at focusing on the most important things and I and and I've learned how to prioritize and pick what's most important and so one of the reasons it applies to what you're asking is I think that if you have a second thing you have time for in headspace for it is building building that audience one person at a time one group of people at a time one opportunity at a time just build and build and build because everything else requires that to be working those two things to be working you have to have good content and it continually pushing yourself forward to be better and the second thing is that audience boy I tell you yeah there was a guy who was a seat this one of the CEOs I worked under at NPR that said nothing solves a problem like a hit and that boy it's he was he right that if you've got that audience and you're building that audience questions about monetization monetization how do I build like a subscription business how do I you know do events or all those things become easier when you've got an audience and I see that play out in my life every day when you see those down numbers go up or download numbers go up opportunity start to happen you know you start things start to come and come come come to focus for you it's like you know it makes it really clear you've got an audience you can feed back on with to kind of help you grow and give you encouragement and give you advice and guidance you can survey your audience to see what they really think you know like those I think everything and so every minute you're putting into building that audience I think is the second thing you don't have the time to deal with the monetization or or serving your audience of where the hour is going to come to do that like worry about that's a tomorrow problem that's next week next month's problem right it's it's today's problem is building that audience because all those other problems don't get solved and once you have that audience relationship well that is doing beautifully I mean I mean really just I get's blowing my mind and I mean I came into this with no expectations so it's been amazing one other question I have for you based on something you said which was you said the average listener needs 3.29 yeah so with that said I have a pretty built in audience from my Facebook group really nice following and I've been not healing I've been in private practice for 32 years so people want to know what I think and anyway I'm shy though on social media and shy to say three million times hi you know I have this podcast so would you do it three different ways because what I do basically is each show is a theme about healing so it's like about grief or it's about healing your broken heart or healing whatever it's all about healing so would you say for my show about grief that I just did would you post three different times and would you do it like like three different days ahead of the show so my show comes out on Tuesday so would you do it leading up three different times no what would you do I would do three different so I would so first off I think it starts much earlier than that I think when you book the guest and you've decided to do a conversation about grief okay you say you say your audience hey I'm going to be doing this conversation by grief in a couple weeks do you have questions or things you want me to talk about cover and and when people respond say that's excellent and I'm really glad thank you very much for doing that and when you record the episode you say hey you know what guest you know Belinda gave me this question we talked to each other on Twitter and she really wanted me to ask you about X and you get the response and then you then you say to Belinda hey you know I asked you question it's going to be on Thursday's Thursday show and then you never promote something that someone can't immediately click through too so if you don't don't promote it the day's leading up to the episode if the episode comes out on a Tuesday start on Tuesday so that's an immediate reaction there is no advantage to forward promotion whatsoever right I would say that once you've released it think of three different like amazing quotes like some of those power moments we were talking about earlier like like that really is just an amazing clip of quote like you should be tweeting out that quote saying we're having you know making a little you know for for those little titles that has the quote in it like a quote tile like make one of those for it and post that and say I've got new episode about grief you wouldn't believe what else there is to hear in this conversation you'll share that bit and three of those is not going to feel like three times right to your audience if you put on the same thing three times I think people are going to get annoyed and stuff but if you put three different things about it that work so it's a cycle and continue on so you're doing all this and then you're also let's say you're doing that thing about heartbreak well while you're promoting the grief episode you're you're asking for questions about heartbreak like what you want to know and you're quoting them back in the recording you're just creating a cycle oh I love believe me I'm Belinda and Belinda who hears her who you hear from you again saying I got an answer your questions in two days show the belinda is going to send out to her friends like hey man I asked you questions podcast and you know another thing we're doing with a couple series we've done in the past and a real basic trick is to set up like the Google voice number where people can call and leave you a message and say if you have a question about grief call this number and ask your question and then in the actual recording you can play back the people's voices asking the question oh my god Belinda she has a question and then you play that back again it's cost nothing it's not that too much work to do but you do that and then you tell Belinda you are in this podcast episode you're just saying it out everyone she knows hey listen I'm in this podcast and you basically have found a way to get some free marketing to expand your you're really can I put you in my back pocket please I know some comments in the chat about consistency the student consistency with format is important consistency with format is not important consistency of experience is important it's incredibly important to figure out what you deliver and deliver on that time and time and time and time again radio lab has no format no consistency this American life has a shell of a format but and that's consistency but what happens in each of those parts change so please don't misunderstand what I said folks them be incredibly consistent but do it on the right things and then let go of the things that don't matter I think everybody's minds are blown a little bit so we have two more pre-submitted questions and then after that I think if anybody else has questions I'll just have them raise their hand yeah we can go from there so the first of our pre-submitted questions is from Mari and I keep saying the first I really mean the next and if you want to ask the question Mari I know you said you wanted to speak up okay hi Eric thank you so much for the book I really enjoy it I have a podcast that's episodic it's called check your head mental help for musicians so we have musicians and experts come and share their mental health solutions for wellness so let's say I have Gilby Clark of Guns and Roses come on the podcast I believe that I'm attracting a lot of his fans and so according to you know to each episode I might be attracting fans of the artist but I want to be able to retain those fans to continue on to the other episodes so I know like when I think of my favorite talk show hosts I think of like sometimes they put in their own personal story or there's like an ongoing narrative from the host or something like to create an ongoing narrative you know so that people come back I mean what do you think of that or what are your thoughts on that so I have some thoughts which I'm constructing my head as I'm speaking now so I think the question I'm asking myself is what do you want them what do you want them to like about this that they prompts them to come back and you are one vehicle for that but I think there might be depends on you know like if you have do you have a lot of well-known people on it or is it is it kind of a mixture well it's a mixture of up and coming artists and also like household names like I was able to get Fred Armasson on who's a drummer but also you know comedian with Portlandian and so forth and you know we just had Jesse Leach of Kill Switch Engage which is a big band a metal core band but then you know like I said we have up and coming artists like Winona Oak that most people haven't heard of that has a great story that I think has a lot of potential and I do think like I have a certain interview style that people like and people have said that Mari you know your voice is so soothing I really enjoy listening to you but I'm just wondering you know part of me is like I'm not sure if I want to put a personal narrative out there like talk about my own mental health challenges or you know ask the audience you know what do you think about this what do you know what kind of solutions do you have and then maybe the next episode you know talk about how I resolved that I mean that was one idea but part of me is like do I want to put that personal information out yeah I hear you and tell me such these discussions like what are you talking to them about just their music or is it like or mental health or when is it what are you discussing well it's more on mental health like they'll talk about panic attack or PTSD or depression and they're kind of to me they're like inspiring harrowing stories where they find their solutions we talk about you know what did you do was it therapy was it medication was it meditation was it you know I mean there's so many different solutions for mental health and then I usually have an expert in that field let's say we talk about OCD I have an expert on OCD talk about you know their ideas for for resolution and for recovery so so it's all about solutions for recovery you know first off it sounds like a great podcast so good for you right so you're forming a community with that podcast of people who care about these issues because they're experiencing it themselves or someone they love and care about is experiencing it right and so embrace that role as the curator of that community and thank you for doing that I think it's important there are people who need to hear those stories and and bless you for doing it so good for you so the consistent thing they're coming back for the thing that unites that community is the reinforcement that like it's gonna be okay you know if it's not okay now I know it will be because here are these inspirational people who've been through sometimes worse than I have and look they've gone under do great things or are amazing people are inspiring stories right and so that to me is is that's the thing the people come back for and I don't think that requires you to reveal a lot of yourself personally I don't think you need to to show a lot of yourself the part you do need to be open about and and and advocate for is your enthusiasm for them your inspiration your how impressed you are how moved you are just being human around right that doesn't require you you could never I think you could be a great host for your podcast and never tell your own story right because that's you know people are coming to you because they want to hear someone like a great pitch for your show from what I've understood it and maybe more some of the word month to say is hear stories from people you've heard of or will hear of in the future about how they have coped with with with mental health right challenges and struggles how they kind of you persevered and if that's the case then you are really kind of connecting people to inspiration to hope to just the feeling of not not alone you know you look at like if you watch the musical dear Evan Hanson if you see that a broadway the opening scene two parents and two different houses both of them struggling with teenage kids they're having problems they don't know what to do with them and they're singing does anybody have a map does anybody have a map right and it's very moving in that sense because many parents look at their kids who are expressing mental health issues anxiety depression suicidal thoughts while acting out whatever and they don't they feel alone they feel like they're my kids broken like I screwed up as a parent and there's so much stigma around it they can't ask for help right and what you're doing is you're pursuing people here's I don't have your map but here's somebody else's map and they're okay which means you can be okay your loved one is okay they're okay which means and they're cool and they're doing great work that we all admire so it's going to be okay and and I think so I think that's really that's the deliverable year so I think and as much as you can subtly tell people that in expressing how you as a host presented how you describe the podcast how you describe it to people even even that episode data like what are you telling people um that's what they're going to come back for is that I hope that answers your question it does thank you so much Eric and thank you for actually capturing what I'm trying to do with the podcast with your words okay okay you know if people get it but I feel like you really get it so thank you well you know it again perfect exactly all right this is from Shana Davis who I do not think was able to make this chat um so Shana Davis's podcast is the BS we feed ourselves and it's about autoimmune and burnout issues compounded by the crazy standards that were all are all kind of being pushed on us the crazy um you know boss bay work all standards so she writes here um she's been recording these episodes and she's trying to figure out do I group them by topic do I do one season on one topic you know that's going to take up a bunch of brain space though if I do that and I just want to get these episodes out um so do I take the extra time to really carefully like curate them or it doesn't matter um so it sounds like she has a bunch of episodes recorded and she's trying to figure out how to structure those episodes and if it would be worth the time to really really carefully curate them I think that someone is in that position creating that podcast uh my first inclination is even if you have ten or twenty followers uh why don't ask them like like when you come into this like what would make this easier to enjoy and say it in an episode like open an episode like folks have a question for you we'll get to the guest in a minute or the conversation in a minute but I just really I'm struggling with how best to present this stuff to you and to kind of have the conversation that we all want to have together and so how can I you know what's your advice for me here's a Twitter handle or an email you can send to and just let me know your thoughts on this one or two questions and then that's it I mean I give you 30 45 seconds to say that and people will respond if they don't that also tells you something but uh they will respond and they may give you a lot of feedback that you could find very useful as you can tell from this conversation I'm really into not into breaking down mysteries with an audience and just asking them what their thoughts are what their pressures are and how they can you can grow it because your audience is your it doesn't matter if you have an audience of 20 people or 20 thousand um they're the most important ass that you have and uh so how can you utilize them and use them better and so nobody you know outside of you nobody knows your content better than the people who actually listen to it and seek it out so you may want to just have the conversation with them yeah I think that's great advice I know on the last coaching call we talked a lot about how she is kind of uh feeling stuck and how anxiety can sometimes be the enemy of actually getting the thing done um and we did set I know we worked with her to set a date on no matter what you're gonna have to just publish your podcast by this this date um we're all gonna work to keep her accountable so I am also yeah that's great advice you gave her and great a great give you that that's that's what great coaches do is they give people structure and they kind of give people options you know I always tell people and less concerned about doing specific things that I am in understanding options and discussing them and I also have not a big fan of overthinking things I have never I even mentioned this in the book I've never felt I've ever finished anything like perfectly it's never done I could always sit there and work on it for another hour or two hours or I can just sweeten the segue or swap out this music or make this 30 seconds down to 27 seconds or whatever right um it's never done it's like as a quote I have in the book which I I think describes my feeling in this very well which is a quote about poetry that said a poet poem is never finished is just abandoned and I think podcast episodes are the same thing you just at some point how whether it's a deadline or just realizing that you will never look at this and say wow it's perfect if it if you do your expectations are too low right if you think wow I nailed it then you know what you're wrong you didn't know it it's always a struggle to kind of push yourself forward and if you embrace that then all of a sudden you give yourself permission to let go of some of the anxiety because you're giving yourself permission to um to to fail to and failure is not necessarily that thing you don't want failure in a heart surgeon or an airline pilot but in a podcast producer you certainly can try things and fail and the root of anxiety is assuming that the worst thing is going to happen all the time and that never's the case so if you prove to yourself by experience that I put something out and the worst thing that happens is that not as many people listen to this episode you know that's an important bit of freedom to give yourself yeah that's that reminds me of some great advice I got once which is um and I think a lot of creative sort of struggle at the same issue of you know and nothing is ever going to be perfect but some great advice I got once was think of the worst thing that's going to happen and then think of the very best thing that's going to happen and what actually is going to happen is probably going to fall right in the middle of that maybe leaning to one side or the other but it's usually never going to be either of those things but on that note we have one anonymous question this anonymous question is from someone who just started their podcast so they have about a hundred downloads right now they're feeling good but they're really just beginning their podcasting journey so they were wondering if you had any top tips for them or tips on monetizing their podcast or preparing their podcast for monetization even though it's still in its infancy so for the person who's new and has a hundred downloads right yes um realize that every single podcast in the world has been at the point you're at that's the first thing to give yourself realize that even like something huge was at one point something with a hundred downloads and even for just a minute but minutes but that everything in most podcasts turn off slow podcasting you know you hear stories of people being you know getting on the charts the first week that they're out then the truth is the podcasting is a marathon sprint and you build over time it's just the way it is and it may happen fast or slow but you build over time and so what you always want to do is when you think if you're looking at your statistics and you zoom out so you have the view of like the year or whatever rather than the weaker the month or what have you is that you see growth you see that trajectory happening and you can always increase the the trajectory of that growth happening so I think it's embracing that mindset this is a marathon that a sprint and then the work is never done when it comes to marketing or growing your podcast it's never work is never finished right it's always happening but if someone had a hundred downloads which means they're starting to get some people listen to who they probably don't know I would lean into where can I find people where can I find allies at that stage like allies are people who care about the same issue who may or may not be my friends it could be people I know read it for them it could be people who are Facebook friends it could be my real life friends right what we have this thing in common and I think that you know work is always better when it's done in some sense of collaboration and so much podcasting can be so lonely and isolating and alone that you can you can change that by bringing in allies and like kind of a kitchen cabinet a group of people who can can be your friend and will listen to things and give you feedback early on because the more feedback you get from people the faster you're going to grow if you're just expecting yourself and this is true when you're starting maybe honest it's true years later if you're if you've been very successful the more you are getting feedback the more input you get the faster you're going to grow and so sometimes that stuff comes to naturally sometimes you have to go out and find it and so if I was the stage of I was starting something to have 100 downloads I would realize the only way I'm going to get to the 300 downloads is when I start to reach out and recruit people I was a broadcaster or worked in broadcaster radio before I became a broadcaster and I was always amazed how the DJs in radio stations can speak to half a million people behind a microphone but didn't like to go out and meet people in person didn't like to go to events or whatever they're very awkward and uncomfortable during that and and in podcasting but they can still get away with it because podcasting is like or excuse me drugcast is one to many and podcasting really is one to one done many many times over and if you embrace that social element of podcasting it's much easier and the thing is even if it's awkward it's you benefit from it you grow faster you're better at what you do you have a more solid foundation underneath just there's no downside to it something's a very long answer to that question sorry I think it's really helpful and I think I know I I help Kevin out and even working with him it can be a lonely time if you're not sitting in an office with somebody that you can you know go and say hey take a look at this for me really quickly I'll learn to live with this during the pandemic many of us to have oh yeah but the truth is that but podcasting even when you have an audience of millions can be a very lonely experience so just don't accept that don't don't accept that reality say I'm going to bring even if I have two or three people who are kind of my crew on producing this podcast they're gonna listen to things they're gonna talk to me about things I'll thank them in the episodes they'll be part of it that crew helps you grow much faster so that's why I'd be focusing on building that absolutely all right so now we have a couple of people who do not submit questions ahead of time but they have their hands raised and I believe the first person in line is Natalie yeah hey Eric thanks so much for being here so my question is right off of what you were just talking about and you've mentioned it a few times now like building that community right from the very beginning so people to collaborate with and then also just your listeners right whoever's following you and starting to build that what do you recommend for build like actually building that community oh as far as like like building the community the larger community not like you're kitchen cabinet but the chemical larger group of people well yeah I guess let me be more specific yeah um you know so you have if you're someone who's brand new 100 downloads right and that doesn't have a name attached to it you just see the number 100 how do you start to figure out who those people are and pull them into a community you know I know some people do like Facebook groups or um something like that or even like a Instagram profile for your podcast so you can know know who the numbers are behind the know who the names are behind the numbers right that's kind of what I'm asking so so so that's a great question thank you for that um I would just imagine the community you want to have and start building out the components of that like if you said oh if I was really successful I wasn't at 100 browser let's say 5000 downloads in episode yeah which is not a crazy number um so what would I have then what would I have it five thousand well I'd probably have an Instagram handle handle I'd probably have a Facebook group um it was an interesting article in the New York Times about a year ago of podcasts that did not set up Facebook groups the fans created their own because as always this you know without the creator being involved in it because the creator wasn't doing it and they wanted to talk to each other I mean you know it used to be dating profiles you put in the bands you like and now it's you put in the podcasts you listen to and and not that I'm dating but that's what I'm told that the and because it's such a marker of who you are so if you had that group community 5000 what elements would you have and what are those elements could you put into place now a Facebook group that you're curating and then talk about it in the in the don't just expect people to find it and don't do a hey check out my page on Facebook like if you'd like to have a conversation with me in between episodes or with each other go to this Facebook group because again you're selling the benefit of doing so you're not worrying about you know just like hey follow me on Facebook or Instagram why who cares right yeah but if you if you give reasons why this benefits to that people will start to show up and and and I think that's the way you do you know whether it's a Twitter handle and you you which you shout out to or and but then give them a reason to do it don't just say follow me on Twitter which everybody does it's a waste of every every syllable of energy and breath that went into it as a waste right but if you say I'm having an upcoming episode on X and if you reach out the end my DMs are open on Twitter so if you reach out to me on Twitter at this handle I'll include your question that's a reason right and so make it meaningful engagement not just like hey come check me out like why there's no no reason for me to expend any energy doing that at all um right and I would focus it I wouldn't like promote six things at once I'd promote one thing and do it like six or eight times and then stop and do another thing and six or eight times to see why you could build that but so I guess a good frame of reference is imagine what you will be like when you're bigger and and start putting those elements into place and start talking about them as if they have meaning now and and and and and build that meaning build that into reality yeah all right thanks so much very much and next up we have Nikita thanks hi Eric you keep apologizing for your long answers but there's no need everything you're saying is pure gold so I want to say thank you so I want to follow up I had two questions based on things you were saying so one thing you said earlier was about audience engagement at the audience what they want and we know that likely if they're going to respond they need some sort of carrot if they're going to take the time to tell us do you have any preferred carrots carrots that often work better than others like what tips do you normally use to get your audience to engage with you that's question one and then my second question had to do with show notes in terms of are the key things to include is there some sort of like magic lanes and how if it all should they differ from that little summary that we put in our you know podcast so those are my two questions show notes and the first one is remind me again carrots video audience how you actually get them to reply so the carrots better than others you know we've talked about a couple of them in this conversation about thinking about the benefits what they're getting out of it and I think that goes really far and think about what problem you're solving what thing you could do for them and I've been speak to that that's the carrot it's not like you know we often have conversations about training an audience and that doesn't that's not meant as a pejorative thing but how do you how can you train your audience to behave the way you want to do by giving them examples and permission to do things and I have seen people who have tried to engage audiences by offering prizes like the first ten people who do this will get you know a copy of this book or we'll get a free code or these type of things and for advertisers that works I don't think it works very well for content creators because you're training the audience with the wrong measures the wrong incentives if an incentive that they might want is that they can ask a question of somebody interesting that's a great carrot if there's extra material that's like you want to hear this kind of this part of the conversation we didn't include if that's a little bit of a carrot so you know I think about what do they want what do you have that they want it's really worth kind of going out of their way flipping the screen over to Twitter or Instagram or TikTok or whatever to see something or whatever or or experience something if you're talking I remember one time oh what was it one of the largest well I was in a pair one of the largest traffic I remember now there was a piece on all things considered which is obviously broadcast program that um was about a painting that had been stolen and found again and haven't been seen or photographed in decades so some of the photographs were that great and the person on air said you can see the painting by going to npr.org and for like the next two years there was nothing that got more traffic they're just going to see the painting they've spent four minutes talking about that what a carrot right it's something it doesn't it doesn't be huge it just was like you know satisfying a curiosity is one a way to participate and engage is another and all those kind of things like what's really in it for them what do I have that they would like to have in sharing that in that way that's uh you know if you know a real common one you hear overused is um uh not it doesn't sound like a minute you're podcast but some other podcast are like oh do you see that video of the skateboarding bulldog right always not finding you talk about it and they're like well there's a link to it in my Instagram and like you know like like just like we're talking about something you can see it but you do it which sounds enough a lot like the npr example but it's it's sugar it doesn't really have a lot of substance or depth to it it really isn't connected to why people are there so they might go and look about it but that's not gonna come back you know um so I think I would focus on the things you have that really kind of uh or what they want and one encourages them to not just go and see it but to follow you as well so that helps and then show notes um I will say that uh there's a great daily podcast newsletter called pod news and a guy who does it James Kiddland who's a fantastic guy um also writes lots of little articles and interesting things um that are not in there is the great thing about pod news is it takes about three minutes to read so you can scan through it and find out what's going on in podcast he did an article a couple weeks ago about show notes where he actually looked at every single podcast platform and found out how they handle show notes so like like like do they do they use it in search do they even pick up the show note data do like what happens to the links like some providers take out all the links and so um go search for that article podnews.net I think it is and uh look for show notes to search for show notes and you'll find that article and read it and that's a great great first step. Thank you for that. I felt like your response to my audience question was kind of heartfelt and so I don't have to be Oprah and you get a car and you get a car to talk to me and I just kind of need to think a little bit more about who the person is and yeah it's my tongue in your heart to make them speak to me. Yeah I was a radio couple times we tried to do think where we incentivized people to do the right thing like for example when I was in radio I worked at a station with mpr news station and the classical music and we um we did an event once which was kind of like taking uh which is with for the Mr. Holland's opus foundation and so basically the Mr. Holland opus foundation takes unused instruments and provides them to kids in need who want to learn to play those instruments. I think old trumpets and violins and everything and and give them kids they can learn and we said you know if you give this instrument it goes to a kid in need and we'll register you for like this amazing weekend experience of seeing the Cleveland Orchestra like you know I'm dinner and bubble bubble and we realized we didn't need to do that the people were so jazzed have some of way to get rid of their old instruments that they didn't need the the person who won though we can think didn't even take it okay because the benefit to them was wow I can help somebody and get rid of something I don't need anymore at the same time so it's just like we really cognizant about what you can do that people actually what makes them feel good. That's amazing thank you I think some great insight but next we have Julian with his handrails. Awesome what's up so um in earlier Eric you had mentioned to Ellen you gave her great advice for her podcast where she talks about grief and different things like that and getting the audience involved I think was a really smart tip to give so I'm curious how you would uh what advice you would give for the interview format right like I bring guests on but there's kind of this curiosity and anonymous element you want to have for guests until you bring them on well I don't know if that's the correct notion firstly but how could you get your audience involved or engage them further for a guest given that you know you maybe don't want to reveal their name or who they are yet in order to have suspense. So what's the advantage of having suspense? Good question I think it just keeps them curious like they're like um I don't know it might ruin the surprise whenever the episode is released it's like oh okay I already knew who this was maybe it's less exciting when it's actually announced but I but I can also see like oh I know who this is I'm I'm looking forward to it more I can kind of see both sides so um so yeah I'm not sure exactly what where the trade-offs weigh off and in what direction they lean more on. So I made a point earlier about how the problems and challenges the independent podcasters face are not that much different than big companies. Have you ever heard of fresh air or a podcast named Terry Gross before? Have you ever heard of that before? Definitely based over here yeah it's fairly based right in the number of you are um so Terry Gross is probably regarded as being the best interviewer in the country and pod and fresh air is a podcast that's downloaded literally millions of times today and and she is like right up there with like Oprah and Howard Stern because the best podcast interviewer there is and what I worked with her and her team and Philadelphia WHOI um for a number of years when I was working at MPR and and and and Julian they they they had the same argument you did about we want to maintain some mystery we want to maintain some surprise and I'm like would you please just tell people what's happening tomorrow in the body of the show could you say today is Wednesday and tomorrow we're talking to Barbara Streisand like right who that's big news she doesn't give a lot of interviews and you're talking to her or I'm talking to the president of the United States or I'm talking to you know this very important person or I'm gonna repeat an interview I did with this person who just died it's like you know they wanted to be like people turn on the radio and oh my goodness there's a president of the United States and that is not untrue that effect is real but it's this big compared to the number of people who will come and listen because you told them what's happening in advance and the number of people you can't see because it's outside of the range of what I'm able to see who's in question of what you do goes up because they understand what you're trying to do and the likelihood that they're gonna come sample you or come try you are so much larger so do you lose some mystery? 100% yes for a handful of people but for most people most days most of the time that that mystery is lost on them because they don't know what's happening you can't have a mystery about something that you're not hearing so if the mystery is really small and the benefit of talking about it is as much as you can and many opportunities you can is much bigger than you have much more opportunity when you're looking at the idea of you know tomorrow I'm going to be interviewing this person I'd love to hear your questions and here's the truth most of the questions you get aren't going to be as good as your questions or you may already have those questions but let's say you have you know what color was your first card is a list of list on your list of questions right and let's say Bob Bob on Twitter right to says oh ask him a lot of his first car what color it was even though you already have that question down right in that it comes from Bob who's on Twitter and say it in your show and and Bob will be it even more to lose who's the asking follow will be so impressed that he was able to connect to you and connect to the guest and again his question answered that you know that's where the magic happens that's a that's a real gesture you're doing it's not yet baking and that has so much more power than you're sacrificing for the few people who have that sense of mystery yeah I love that yeah I think it's interesting I guess I had a mini breakthrough in that there's so many things other podcasters do that it's easy to copy on what they're doing without realizing whether that's actually the best thing to do so I like that you ask me that question at the beginning like why keep it a mystery because yeah it's like it doesn't you don't have to do what everyone else does and that kind of is what allows you to make better decisions when you're questioning the nature of the decisions that you're making so very wise and I look forward to testing that out and seeing how it goes things all about experimenting as well it's my experimenting but it's also about like going back to consistency like I like Stephen Colbert do you like Stephen Colbert yeah he's funny okay who's his guest tonight no idea right does it matter because you want him to be funny you want him to be a fun experience that's what you're tuning in for and so you know that's the the mystery is how that's going to express itself I always tell people when I'm editing episodes that when you describe something to me I kind of write it out my head like this is going to happen that this is going to happen then this is going to happen and if that's the case then how can one of them experience in that episode by the interview or a conversation or a narrative podcast how is that going to violate my expectation what's going to happen how am I going to be surprised and that's your job too okay I'm going to talk to this person about this subject how I make sure there's things that subject to nobody that conversation nobody's on coming awesome thank you Eric so Jane I think you're the next person with your hand up hi again Eric hi so I have a question about the 10 words which we talk about and it's like the most congratulations we went an hour and 40 minutes before talking about it yeah assuming the first thing people bring up yeah right what's mean everyone else has got to completely figure it out which is great so I've been going back to this exercise a couple times now and so to give you some context my podcast is called inside out with Jane and it started out as a fun side project of me interviewing people in my life I found interesting and had or who I thought were living out their dream jobs and I would talk to them about their journey the highs and lows of getting there and season one actually performed really well looking back the download numbers were in the hundreds and it was doing well and then I joined the accelerator and my you know my goal was to hone in on a niche and I think at the time I was really inspired by Guy Ross and Reid Hoffman and I myself have you know had an experience where I ran a startup and got burnt out and so there's this topic area around mental health for entrepreneurs that I wanted to explore and so I've been doing that as the topic of season two my 10 words for this season is how to build a thriving business without losing your mind and I thought this would be kind of like the salute I don't know I guess my expectation was that this would catapult my podcast into some kind of new category and new new stage of growth but even though I'm growing a ton on social media I'm actually seeing the opposite and my download numbers and I wonder if it's because it struck me a little bit as you were talking that I like authenticity is like something I've been thinking about in that with season one it was people that I personally had a deep connection with and was able to have these free-flowing conversations and with season two not that it's not natural but I inherently I'm just like less less personally interested or invested in these stories so yeah I know I threw out a bunch of things there but curious to hear your thoughts about you know that 10 word and how important it is to be like specific when you're thinking about your audience versus just the content you want to put out and is it wrong to just base it off of what I'm interested in as a host? No it's not wrong you shouldn't be doing something you're not interested in as a host usually you can't expect other people to be passionate about something you're not passionate about so if you find it like a subject boring or a guest boring like there's a friend of mine was just on the podcast woman puts out three episodes a week and has been doing it for like a year and half like like how can you do that it's like this like brutal thing and the truth is that she records tons of interviews she's not really into all of them she doesn't say no to anything you know Steve Jobs who's a very quotable person was you know always talked about your you're better known for the things you say no to the things you say yes to that's much more does much more to define you I think that's true of you know I really you know in that book I'm in I'd practice this in as many areas of my life I can fit in like focus like intention right if you go back and you see behind me the books that are on the this shelf over here right right so many of them are about intention and focus and kind of like purpose and then and I think that so when you're figuring out what you want to do and what excites you right give yourself the freedom to say no to things that don't right and you're like well that means I have to search more for topics or I have to throw out some episode conversations I recorded but now you know don't use them if they don't they don't make if they don't get you excited the conversations you record you know and sometimes you end up with somebody who is you know as an interesting story but it's just isn't a great conversation it just didn't work out right you know it's kind of boring or they don't tell good version of their story they were tired or you were tired or whatever it doesn't you have to let it go and so when you're talking about like that basic component of I'm not sure I'm answering your question but that basic component of it's got to be you got a passion about it and it's got to be a great conversation or it doesn't hit the market it doesn't go out right and that does mean throwing things out that you put effort into but if you don't you know look it's like if you eliminate if like if you eliminate your worst episodes you know the overall average goes up right it's like like that that's true regardless and and unfortunately and if that means a difference between a season however you define that if a season was going to be 20 episodes or 10 episodes and now it's six episodes instead of 10 which do you think is better for you to have six great episodes or have 10 in which four of them are kind of lousy or aren't that real good and you are a victim of the rules you live by and the great thing about podcasting is there are no rules are very few rules I was also going to talk about your your 10 word description I had to build a thriving business without losing your mind is it's a good it's it's not bad I'll put it that way I'll tell you right now that I'm I'm missing you that right you have a personal narrative and you are a person who who may be interesting that I want to hear your experience and like life you've lived the background you have the worldview you have I want to hear a little bit more about you and why somebody else couldn't sit that chair and host the same thing right I think that's something that you're kind of missing with that because it it when you talk about how to build a thriving business that was in your mind where two things is happening you're either giving all the advice which I get the impression isn't the case or you're talking to people who are sharing advice there's an example I use the book a woman who works for me now was a friend of me at mine at the time and came up with a podcast she's like we want to talk about film this example's in the book I use it because it's such a good example and I like that that isn't good enough like it's you and your friend talking about film and end of being by the time we were done talking about it it was two young women talk to women filmmakers about advice of starting your career in film that's really what they wanted to talk about and then a ten-word version of that thing but that's very different than we're going to talk about film and so there's a version of this that reflects you what makes you different as a host that I'd be curious about and the people you're choosing to talk to there's probably something some kind of thread that binds all them to and I don't get I don't get a look at that to this ten-word thing too you know there's two things always derail these ten-word descriptions one is that you're describing something that could be described a bunch of other things you mentioned read Hoffman's Masters of Scale and Guy Roses how I built this could those two podcasts be used to be described with the same sentence kind of you know in some some episodes they both good and so if there's and you can continue there's two million podcasts if you can describe a second one using your ten-word description you probably aren't being specific enough and the things that are you know immediately jumped to me is you've been a business owner you're you're you're appeared to be a woman I would tell you identify and and there are other things about two two I think are you're probably equally interesting and distinct like those those things make you as very specific host and I want to hear that specifically both in you how you describe it and what I hear in the show and the same thing with a guest you're not picking anybody there's a criteria for who you're picking and like and the losing your mind thing feels like kind of a very generalized statement and I think there's something more specific you can get at so focus on you focus on them and I think that's really what you would do and and that seems like how can that make a difference but how you describe your show in the world and the words you use the things you choose to highlight are the distinction and they do matter because when you're doing things that describe other things are aren't specific enough you aren't serving yourself I'm going to cut in really quickly here we have about 10 minutes left and two more hands up so if we want to do two quick answers we have Rosie next thanks Katie my core question was around my audience and listeners and how I I don't feel that they're really engaging if the numbers aren't really growing either and I've been analyzing and analyzing to think about what it is I'm sure it's a number of factors including it might be the main thing that my my podcast and sort of myself is evolving right so I'm in season two season one was I've never done a podcast before let's talk about these interesting topics and they were kind of all over the map and this season was more focusing on how equity diversity and inclusion plays out in the workplace and how we can think about business differently season three that I'm already planning for is more linking capitalism and finances so still business focused the common theme throughout all of that is why it's changing lenses that's why I called it changing lenses so about changing our perspectives so mainly I'm wondering because I can't get people to answer my question of what do you want to hear more about what other guests would you like to hear I just I don't feel that kind of engagement and I'm trying to figure out if I've got the right audience or like the right people that I'm reaching and do I need to switch that up ultimately I just wanted to know if people are connecting to this and if they aren't and they aren't why not but I can't get people to answer so I know we've talked about kind of like how do we do that on this but I yeah if you have any suggestions for based on where I'm at where to go next with this that would be helpful uh why I wanted like when you said like what kind of guests you what kind of service do you want to talk about what guests do I have I just don't even think about that well they'll give an answer you're for podcasts I love but if you ask me to tell me what problems I have then then then I might engage on that or give you some feedback or like what's the what what's the question you've always wanted to ask but never been brave enough to ask about this subject like in a dangerous space or risky space um give a way for people to ask anonymous questions because so much of uh issues around business specifically the DEI issues and representation people are scared to admit they don't know what to do people even you know people from all walks of life just want to know how to do the right thing and need a little bit of hand holding and are scared to ask questions and if you provide a space for them to ask questions you're solving a problem for them right so an anonymous way or an easy way fill out a google form or whatever to ask your question or what are some problems you have or what's like you know something where you really are focusing on what they'd get but if you ask them just what they want no one's ever going to give you the right answer or they're going to give you a polite answer they're going to speak to the truth and so find ways to kind of bust through that by focusing on solving problems for them directly or indirectly in anonymous questions is an indirect way asking them like what are some of the things you struggle with share me tell me your story yeah those are the things that that work thank you so if this is my description does this convey what I was trying to describe so this podcast is about diverse is where we learn to diversify our perspectives decolonize business and humanize work that sounds like broccoli to me it sounds like really important like it's good for me but I don't understand why you know navigating you know what people you know like on those issues the same exact issues you said like like people need help navigating new terrain terrain that is unfamiliar to them or that you know they don't it's nothing they don't care about them just don't know what to do and and your conversations are happening can demystify that so if you're you know a problem people have is the mystery and not knowing what to do and if you talk about now here's where we demystify and kind of provide some pathways or some roadmamps on how to grow in these areas that sounds like I just know I'd say yeah I'd be curious I wouldn't I wouldn't do that makes sense thanks a lot Eric sure and by what I say it means it sounds like broccoli that's not a pejorative statement it's it's like it's good for me it just doesn't isn't necessarily the choice I would make because you haven't made it appetizing and you make it appetizing we solve the problem understood thank you and we have one final hand up and that is Julian's Julian all right so Jane inspired me to ask a ten-word question uh ten-word description question and so initially when I started my podcast I focused and it's an entrepreneurship podcast and initially I focused a ten-word description on like a mission statement like why does this podcast exist and so initially uh the ten-word description was our mission is to inspire and empower young entrepreneurs to solve the world's biggest problems right specific emphasis on solving on entrepreneurs that are solving big problems massive problems and making the case that this is for entrepreneurs and both to inspire not only inspire but to empower them but uh but I the more like ten-word descriptions that I read I realized that it's really talking about the what not the why and I like I guess there's kind of like a trade-off between both that I've noticed currently I've I've changed it to the what a ten-word description which is basically telling the stories of the visionary tech entrepreneurs that are solving the world's biggest problems right so that's talking about like who the guest is and what they're specifically focused on and whatnot um so I'm curious how you would think about the trade-off between these two like talking about the what the what versus the mission in this ten-word statement like what you think is most effective and whatnot and uh and and one like point there is like the mission I like that it speaks to like hey I'm targeting young entrepreneurs while like the what it was like hey we're talking to visionary tech entrepreneur it doesn't say who this is for although it might be implied it might be more implicit so yeah curious what your thoughts are on that so I um I think mission statements are good for getting people excited about what they're doing but I don't think they work outside of that group but I mean that I mean that's a large organizations too and most most mission statements are like like blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah I'm very critical of a lot of mission statements and organizations because they they do things that feel good and sound good but they don't actually they don't put anything at risk they don't bring anything online right and so what's a way that you could put something at risk in this and that would be by making a promise you then have to deliver and when I hear you talking I hear you talking about this mission and you want to you want to inspire um uh which I think is great so how do you inspire like what what what does the what what does the inspiration come from yeah so the inspiration pieces by talking about entrepreneurs that are solving these massive problems it's like whoa if they're doing something to solve this massive problem that seems like almost impossible to solve I can probably do it as well especially if this guesses like a young entrepreneur that is close to my age that's the inspiration component and then the empowerment is well if you're solving a massive problem you have to learn so much along with journey in order to be able to figure out how the help to solve it that there's a lot of lessons along the way that we can then communicate to the audience that's the empowerment piece so uh Kevin Marita who just kind of announces being the executive editor of the Los Angeles Times and used to be an editor ESPN before he was that started an online presence at ESPN called the undefeated and he um when in the mission statement for the undefeated he said the undefeated is dealt with his description right and he did that so purposefully because he knew that some people were going to understand what that meant for sports site to be dope and a lot of people wouldn't he didn't care about right and a lot there's a lot of we express a lot of code in many very many areas of our life um and I think that you're a 10-word description because you're specifically talking to young people and you want to help them kind of use inspiration to hack world problems right um uh that there's a code you can say which means there's going to mean something to them that uh serves two purposes it means something to them about the what that inspiration is meant to do for them and it also is code that it's for them which that means you don't have to say for young people right young entrepreneurs but that's implied that they know what that means and so I think that you would be well served by thinking that way of how can I speaking code to young entrepreneurs in language that they are going to understand and nobody else will and that's totally fine that's um yeah so in that case it becomes more implicit uh just by the way you communicate but what what what you know when they when you talk it wasn't the only the the mission statement of the undefeated was not the undefeated as dope it was one sentence in that mission statement and you may be able to google and find it somewhere because I know somebody who did once it's out there somewhere but um uh that kind of thinking of what that one word conveys is something you should be thinking about two years that's fine okay cool I like that I think I'll stick with the one it should be you you appeared to me to be significantly under the me which is not that crazy old but um uh you know you should use words that would sound authentic coming out of your mouth and told bullshit coming out of mind so I would like to thank you so much Eric um and thank you everybody for uh your amazing questions Eric we have requests in the chat already for you to return so great that's great and I would do that and I'm going to put um uh something in this I have a newsletter uh that comes out every couple weeks that's our versions I would love that so if I think that link takes you to that website I'll check it now before we get off at www.audiodesertion.com you find the sign up for my my newsletter which is yeah that's exactly where it works um which um comes out every couple weeks and talks about stuff like this um and also some other things too perfect thank you so much everybody have a great day um it's real fun