How To Hook Your Podcast Listeners in the First 5 Minutes

question. Why are you listening to this podcast episode right now? What made you decide to press play? Was the title of the episode particularly compelling? Did you read the show notes before press and play? Did I send this episode to you personally and you are listening as a favorite of me? That could be if so. Thank you. Regardless, you're here now. And in this very moment, what you're probably doing is asking yourself whether you're going to listen to the rest of this episode, right? What you're going through right now is what I call the moment of choice. And this moment is actually the most pivotal moment in the life and health of a podcast. In this case, my podcast grow the show. And I discovered this moment and its impact back in 2018 when I was still working on my first podcast, Philly Ho. Now, I eventually went on to take that podcast past 100,000 downloads and 100,000 dollars monetized. But before that, I went through several periods of struggle. And one of those periods was when I looked at the analytics in Apple podcasts for Philly Ho and noticed that a vast majority of people who had pressed play on the episodes were leaving before three minutes, three to five minutes. They pressed play, they listened to a couple of minutes, and then they stopped. They dropped off. But the weird thing is that the people who didn't drop off within the first three to five minutes of an episode almost always listened to the whole thing. So we had this one group of people that tuned in, listened to five minutes and left. And then this other group of people that listened to the entire episode. This was fascinating to me. And I wanted to understand why this was happening. Now, there was no way for me to ask these people why they left. There was no way for me to know who these listeners were, whether they were repeat listeners of the show, new listeners of the show, it was just impossible for me to actually ask them. So the only way for me to understand this behavior was to actually observe my own behavior as a podcast listener. So I did an experiment on myself. For a few weeks, every time I listened to podcasts, I would actually track what I did and how I chose which podcasts to listen to. It was almost always right before writing the subway or going for a run or doing home DIY project or whatever. And what I would do is I would pull out my phone, open up Apple podcasts, which is what I used to listen to podcasts. I would see the most recent episodes that are available of all the shows that I subscribe to. And I would make a choice which of these episodes do I want to listen to right now? I'd write down the ones that I didn't listen to, what their titles were, the show, who the guest was, whatever. I would write down the ones that I clicked on and pressed to play. And I would track how long I listened to that episode. So whether I listened to the entire thing beginning to end, whether I listened through and then I got to where I was going. And so I stopped listening to the episode and whether or not I came back to finish it. And I would track which ones I just stopped listening to midway even though I was in the middle of my commute or I was in the middle of a run or something like that. And so after a few weeks, I looked at the numbers and quite frankly, pretty quickly I started to notice some patterns. And I noticed that I did the same thing that I saw my listeners doing. Very often I would press play on a podcast episode. I'd listen to less than five minutes of that podcast and then I turn it off and turn on a different episode of a different show. And so as soon as that started happening, my ears perked up and I was like, oh wow, I'm doing the same thing that several Philly Who listeners are doing. Why am I doing this? And so over a couple weeks, I made a list of the episodes that kept me around. And I wanted to dissect them to see if there were any patterns that I could notice. Anything that these episodes are doing to keep me around as a listener that the other episodes that I build on were failing to do. And after just listening to a handful of these episodes, I immediately noticed an insanely clear pattern between all of them. Across different genres of shows, across different topics, categories, the shows that kept my attention were all doing the same three things within the first five minutes of their episodes. So I saw this pattern, wrote it down, articulated it, and immediately decided to put it to the test. I was so, so, so excited that I actually went back and revised the intro of an episode. I was about to release a day later so that I could watch the numbers. Now what's up is that I had to wait a couple days to actually see the numbers come in because people don't listen to your podcast episode the second it's released. But after a couple of days, I looked at the retention numbers on iTunes on podcasts connect. And I saw that listener retention rose by 80%. 80% more listeners stuck around for the entire episode than bailed within the first five minutes. Then after seeing it worked from my show, I brought it to my podcaster friends. My podcaster clients said, you got to try doing these three things in the first five episodes and let me know if you're listener retention numbers improve. And they did across the board. Now I cannot unsee this pattern or on here, I guess. Every single podcast episode that I listened to, I am listening for these three things to be done in the first five minutes and the ones that keep me around always do all three and the ones that I bail on always fail to do them. So today we are going to learn the three things that we need to do in the first five minutes of every single podcast episode to ensure that our listeners who have already pressed play actually stick around and listen to the whole thing. And we're going to learn that not from me. We're going to learn it from three of the most heavily downloaded podcasts in the world. And these three podcasts are each going to achieve these three things in three different ways. So the first one does it just like this one with the host reading out in intro. The second one does it by playing a clip from later in the podcast at the beginning. And the third one shows you how to get your listeners hooked on an episode by telling the story of a potato. This is Grow the Show. The podcast that helps you grow your podcast. My name is Kevin Schmidland and my mission is to help you, the independent podcaster, to grow your audience, get more listeners and monetize so you can have a thriving podcast business. This episode is going to teach you how to not get more listeners but keep more listeners because after all, if you can't get your current listeners to stick around, what's the point of trying to get more? I'm Kevin Schmidland and this is Grow the Show. All right, so before we learn the three things that we have to do in the first five minutes of every podcast episode to retain our listeners, I want to talk more about that moment of choice. So like I said in the intro, even if you've created the most amazing podcast episode that has ever been created that will literally blow people's minds, it doesn't matter if you can't win the moment of choice. Nobody's going to hear it and it's important to understand that. If the first five minutes of your podcast episode is boring or not interesting or doesn't make it clear why people should stick around, you're going to lose them and they're going to miss out on all the gold that is to come. And much to my surprise when I actually did this experiment on myself and just observed my own behavior, I couldn't believe that even shows that I have listened to hundreds of episodes of. In that moment when I selected an episode, I was still listening and thinking, okay, is this how I really want to spend the next 30 minutes of my life? Even for shows that I've spent hours of my life on. So it's important to understand that even if your listeners have been raving fans for a long time, even if you have an immense amount of trust with them, in the first five minutes, they are still considering whether or not they want to listen to this particular episode. They're still holding their phone, maybe they've put it in their pocket, but they haven't really gone all in on listening to this episode. They're listening to the first few minutes. And if you win them over, the phone goes back in their pocket and then you have them as long as you need them. But if you dilly dally, if you have a long wandering intro with lots of small talk and just useless stuff to get things started, it's not really intentional and you haven't done any editing, they're going to leave. They're not going to stick around. They're going to go check out another episode of another podcast that they subscribe to that probably released an episode on the same day. Today, we're going to learn how to win that moment of choice in the first five minutes of the podcast episode. And we're going to learn it from three of the best podcasts in the world. So let's jump in. The first thing I'm going to do is actually play you the first three minutes of an episode of a podcast that I admire greatly. It's one of the best in the game. It's been around for over 10 years. And that's smart passive income with Pat Flynn. Pat Flynn launched this podcast in 2010. And since then, he's taken it past 60 million downloads. So he knows a thing or two about how to podcast. And he has millions and millions of happy listeners. And so I'm going to play you the first couple minutes of one of his episodes. This is episode number 430. It's kind of chosen at random. And I want you to listen really, really closely. Because afterwards, I'm going to explain exactly what he's doing to hook you in and make it so that you want to hear the rest of the episode. So here we go. Can you relate to the following? You have an idea for a business. You put in the effort to try and make it work. And then you lose the momentum. Or you find another idea that might seem a little bit better. And then you focus on that idea. You work on it a little bit. Things get a little tough. Or you just don't see the results that you want. And then you put it aside and you either go back to that first one. Or you try a third idea. And then you try that one. Give it a little bit of effort. Starts to get a little bit hard. Then you think maybe the second idea was actually the better one. But it was actually the first one. And then you go back and forth. And then there's this other new idea that came. And can you relate to this scenario? I think a lot of us entrepreneurs can absolutely relate to this because it's very difficult to find that niche to get into. And even when we find that niche, how do we know if we've given it enough time to succeed? How do we? How do we know if it's the right one? Now, I've written books about selecting an idea. Will it fly, which was published in 2016? Had to test your next business ideas. So you don't waste your time and money nearly 1000 reviews on Amazon, which is really cool. Thank you so much for supporting that if you have already. But that's not why I'm here. I'm here because I wanted to showcase a success story from somebody who is a part of the SPI community who now has passive income has generated over a million dollars with an online course. But it was not his first idea. Definitely not his first idea. And I wanted to have Jacques Hopkins from piano in 21 days come on to share his story about how he found this niche, how he built it out, how he trudged through a lot of the failures that were there at the beginning. And there were a lot of things happening in his life at the same time that made it even more difficult. But what has happened since how his business has grown, and what he's doing in the online course space that's working really well, he's actually become known for how he's helping others in the online course space. You could find him at piano in 21 days.com on YouTube, the same channel name, and the online course guy.com. Great guy. This is all man. This is going to be awesome. And he has a podcast too. The online course show with over a hundred episodes. He's a student of power podcasting. Just incredible success. Can I would share with you? He's going to give us all the things. But first, the intro. Welcome to the smart passive income podcast where it's all about working hard now. So you can sit back and read the benefits later. There you go. Go do that. Now I'm just kidding. Let's break it down. Okay. So like I said before, Pat Flynn has over 60 million podcast downloads over 400 episodes. He's been doing this for 10 years. So he knows a thing or two about how all of this works. And in that clean, I think it's two minutes and 20 seconds, he does the three things that hooks podcast listeners in and makes it so that they are along for the whole ride. So let's break it down. What are those three things? So here we go. Number one, the first thing that every single podcast episode must do. Now Pat Flynn actually does this at the end of his two and a half minute intro. But the most important thing that you have to do in the first few minutes of your podcast episode is to introduce the premise of the show and introduce the person who's leading the journey and why they're leading the journey. Now this seems obvious, but it bears emphasis because this is often missed. And it's missed for a number of reasons. The main reason is a totally understandable and it's because as podcasters, you know, we have released 50, 60, 100 episodes of our show. And so in our mind, the listener that we're speaking to has been along for the journey this whole time, right? They've heard every episode they know who you are. They know what the show is. They know all the inside jokes. But the reality is for the vast majority of listeners that hear podcast episode, that's not the case. In fact, every single podcast episode that you release is going to be the first episode that somebody hears. And so we have to cater to them. We have to cater to those new listeners and make sure that it's clear as day what the show is and who you are and why you're the one to lead the journey that this episode is going to take us on. Because if you don't do that, the people who are hearing you for the first time and are hearing these inside jokes and not getting them kind of just feel left out. They don't get it. They don't know what the inside joke is. And you know, they feel like they're missing something. But even for those who have heard the show before, it's still bears repeating what the show is. What's the purpose? Who's the host? Why are they there? What's the whole point of all this? So with every episode of our podcast, we have to do this. And you can hear how Pat Flynn does this and how he introduces himself and introduces the show. Now, the first thing is at the end of the intro, he introduces the show and he has a voiceover artist who says what the show is about in clear as day, language. Welcome to the smart passive income podcast where it's all about working hard now. So you can sit back and reap the benefits later. Sounds an awful lot like the 10-word description exercise, doesn't it? Working hard now so you can reap the benefits later. That's exactly 10 words people. Oh my gosh, it works. So that's the first half of step one. Introduce the premise of the show. Just say your 10-word description. Make it really clear what it is we're here to do. And then the second half is to introduce yourself as the host and why you are the one that's leading this journey. Now, I've written books about selecting an idea. Will it fly? Which was published in 2016? Nearly 1000 reviews on Amazon, which is really cool. Thank you so much for supporting that if you have already. But that's not why I'm here. Now remember, Pat Flynn has had over 60 million downloads of this podcast and he's been doing it for over 10 years. And so if anybody could afford to not need to introduce themselves, it's him. But he still does and he still mentions why he's the one to lead this journey, why he has credibility on this topic. And that's super important because even now after tens of millions of downloads, there are still people who are going to tune into this show and hear of Pat Flynn for the first time. So he needs to quickly establish credibility and prove why he is the one to lead this journey. Now, many of us haven't written books about the topics that we discuss on our podcast, right? So what if you aren't an expert yet? What if you don't have some sort of accolade or way to, you know, establish yourself as a credible source here? Well, you actually don't need that at all. And this is a limiting belief that I hear in podcasters quite often. Understandably so, right? Because we compare ourselves to people like Pat Flynn who have been doing this for 10 years. But you got to remember that this is where Pat Flynn started too. He wouldn't have written that book if not for this podcast. He started this podcast to just explore how to have smart passive income and in doing so, he became an expert. And that's what we can do as well. Because guess what? Curiosity is one of the strongest credentials that we can possibly have. Almost everyone who has ever achieved anything started on their journey because they were curious. They wanted to learn something. And then after they learned that thing, they wanted to teach it to others. And in teaching it to others, they became an expert. That's the journey that we're on here, folks. If I could go back and change one thing about how I launched Philly Who, my initial podcast, the thing I would change is that I actually didn't say who I was when I launched that show. I fell into the same trap and thought, who am I to interview these amazing people? I'm just not going to mention who I am except my name. And actually, if you look at the Philly Who feed on Apple podcasts, somebody left a review that says, I don't know who Kevin is or why he started this podcast, but I'm so glad that he did. And so while I was afraid to say who I was and I was afraid to say, hey, I'm just some nobody, that's actually a point of strength. And now, just from being curious and sharing what I learned about Philly Stories, I very much in Philadelphia am considered a thought leader. People look for me to know what's going on around town, which still blows my mind, which is crazy. I'm just some guy that interviews people. But here I am. So if you're somebody who is afraid to talk about why you're there, who you are, don't be. Your curiosity is absolutely enough. And that is absolutely a credential for you to lead whatever journey you're taking your listeners on. So step one, introduce the premise of the show in one sentence and introduce the host and why they are the one to lead the journey that we are about to go on. Step two, now that we have established the premise of the overall show and why the host is there, we need to talk about this specific episode. And I wanted to have Jacques Hopkins from piano in 21 days come on to share his story about how he found this niche, how he built it out, how he trudged through a lot of the failures that were there at the beginning. And there were a lot of things happening in his life at the same time that made it even more difficult. But what has happened since, how his business has grown, and what he's doing in the online course space that's working really well, he's actually become known for how he's helping in the online course space. Did you hear what Pat Flynn did there? He didn't just tell you that he was sharing the story of Jacques. He was telling you exactly what pieces of the story he was going to share. And more explicitly what you were going to learn by hearing that story. He says you're going to learn how to find a niche. You're going to learn how to trudge through failures and get through this when life throws a curve balls. And you're going to learn exactly how Jacques is crushing the online course space. So in just a couple minutes Pat Flynn's able to summarize the value that the listener is going to get by listening to this episode without just straight up giving it away. This is extremely powerful. And in establishing the roadmap of the episode and what value it's going to provide, it makes the listeners confident in what they're going to get by sticking around. Now before we move on to step three, I just want to emphasize a piece of subtlety here that I think is really important for anybody who tells stories to realize. So if you have an interview show that tells the stories of successful people or even if you have a you know a true crime show that tells some sort of story over the course of a season, whatever it is, almost all of us are here telling stories. And it's one thing to say that this episode is going to tell the story of so and so who accomplished this, right? So we say this episode is going to tell somebody's story and here's why they're impressive. That's good, but that's not all that compelling because we don't know anything about that person's story or why it's interesting. There are people who have accomplished amazing things who have really boring life stories. And there are people who haven't really accomplished much in a traditional sense, who have incredible stories that could be life changing to here. So we can't just say that we're going to tell a story or that we're going to interview somebody impressive. We have to say exactly why listening to this story, exactly why hearing this conversation is going to be valuable to the listener, right? We don't want to just imply the value just because of what it is. We want to be explicit and say, listen, if you hear this story, you're going to learn this, you're going to learn x, y or z. Very, very, very subtle and takes a little bit of work after the fact or before the interview, if you do tons and tons of preparation and stick to a roadmap, but either way, that little bit of extrajuice that takes for you to summarize not only what's being talked about, but why it's important to hear what's being talked about will go all the way in keeping your listeners and making it so that they listen to the whole episode. So step one, introduce the premise of the show, introduce the host, and why they are the one to lead the journey. Three parts of step one, but crucial, crucial, and you have to use plain English. That's very easy to understand. Step two, in a similar way using plain English, demonstrate the value that this episode is going to provide in explicit terms. If you listen to this, you are going to get this. And number three, and the most effective way to keep listeners to stick around is to spark curiosity and relatability. Can you relate to the following? You have an idea for a business, you put in the effort to try and make it work, and then you lose the momentum, or you find another idea that might seem a little bit better. And then you focus on that idea. You work on it a little bit, things get a little tough, or you just don't see the results that you want. And then you put it aside and you either go back to that first one, or you try a third idea. And then you try that one, give it a little bit of effort, start to get a little bit hard, then you think maybe the second idea was actually the better one, but it was actually the first one. And then you go back and forth, and then there's this other new idea that came. And can you relate to this scenario? I think a lot of us entrepreneurs can absolutely relate to this, because it's very difficult to find that niche, to get into. And even when we find that niche, how do we know if we've given it enough time to succeed? How do we know if it's the right one? So if steps one and two introduce the show, introduce the host and introduce the episode are podcast intro 101, right? And something we're probably all already doing. Step three is definitely advanced introing, spark curiosity, and spark relatability. Now Pat Flynn jumps right in and says, can you relate to this? Quite frankly, any entrepreneur who hears that story can relate to that, because we all feel that, am I in the right place? How do I know what to do? How do I know what the right product is? Whether you are somebody who has already found a niche or somebody who hasn't or whatever, if you're an entrepreneur, you can absolutely relate to the picture that Pat Flynn paints. So immediately he tugs on your relatability strings. But here he also sparks some curiosity by at the end saying, how do we know if we've given it enough time to succeed? How do we know if it's the right one? Regardless of where you are in your entrepreneurial journey, you're going to be curious as to what the answer to that question is. And quite frankly, straight up asking a question like that in the intro is just a great way to spark curiosity. Ask a question. Don't give them the answer again. But if within the first five minutes of your podcast episode, you can make the listener relate to a character within that episode and feel curious about what's to come in the episode, you have one. So let's review the three things that you should achieve in the first five minutes of a podcast episode to hook your listeners in and make sure they're going to stick around as long as you need them. Step number one, introduce the premise of the show, the host of the show, and why they're the one to lead the journey in plain compelling language. Step two, make it clear why this particular episode is going to add massive value to the listeners' day. Not by saying what the episode is, but why it's going to be great. And finally, step three to really make your listeners fall in love with the episode and what's to come. You spark relatability and curiosity. Make it so that the listener relates to a character in the episode, whether that's you or the guest or a character in the story and make them curious for what is to come. Ask them a question or just make them think and make them really excited for something that you're going to reveal later on in the episode. Now, we just heard Pat Flynn achieve these three things in one way. He did a host read intro where in two minutes and 22 seconds, he touched upon all of these three things and set the listener up to really be excited for this episode. But there are other ways that you can do it too. And the next example that we're going to hear is from one of my favorite podcasts because it is just so good at teaching people things and actually because the host of the podcast is based in Philadelphia as well. And this is work life with Adam Grant. This is a podcast that's a partnership with Ted is, in my opinion, one of the best produced podcasts out there. And they have a larger team, a larger budget and some more resources. But they also achieve the same three things in the first five minutes of their episode. So let's hear how work life with Adam Grant hooks their listeners. I have a team meeting with my team. You know, it's Monday morning. So we kind of miss each other. Let's turn our cameras on. For Lizetto Campo, it seemed like a regular day in quarantine. But when they turned on their cameras, something was off. Her face was a potato, a flat image of a potato with Lizette's eyes and lips moving on it. And I just remember thinking, why am I a potato? And of all things, why a potato? Like I couldn't go back to a regular camera. So I just essentially was a potato for the meeting. The previous week, Lizette had been in a virtual happy hour for Latino leaders. And I wanted to make them laugh. And so I thought, you know what, next week I'm going to try to do some funny filters. And so I download these snap filters, but it didn't really download all the way. There was an error message to keep popping up. So I kind of gave up on it and forgot about it. Turns out the filters had worked a little too well and a little too late. Now Lizette was stuck as a potato. Her colleagues laughed and went on with the meeting. Lizette didn't think much of it until she got a text. Someone that's on my staff took a picture of it. I'm posted it on her personal Twitter account. So I had no idea. She wrote, my boss turned herself into a potato and can't figure out how to turn the setting off. And then my colleagues face are hilarious because it looks like they're trying to be serious, but they have kind of like they're trying not to laugh at the same time. It is amazing because you see her, you see the guy, and then there's just a potato. Yes. Yeah, this poor potato is like, how do I stop being a potato? 40 million people have seen it. And it's become sort of a cultural moment in this quarantine world that we're in right now. You have a new identity now, don't you them? That's true. I'm known to the world as potato boss. I have potato appearances requests. And so I've showed up as a potato to some meetings for friends and other organizations and things like that. Okay, so Kev here, right now they just told you an amazing hilarious story that is extremely relatable, right? So this is one of those examples where this team had some resources and can do this, which is awesome. Now they're going to do the rest of the three steps by introducing the show, the host, demonstrating the value of the episode, and sparking some curiosity. The coronavirus pandemic has thrown many of us into the deep end of working remotely. While some people have found creative ways to swim, many others are struggling just to stay afloat. The good news is that remote work is not uncharted waters. We've actually been doing it and studying it for a long time. And with those lessons in hand, you might actually be more prepared than you think to make remote work work. I'm Adam Grant and this is Work Life, my podcast with Ted. I'm an organizational psychologist. I study how to make work not suck. In this show, I'm inviting myself inside the minds of some truly unusual people because they've mastered something I wish everyone knew about work. Today, remote work. How we can communicate better with and without a camera, no potatoes required. And how even during this unprecedented pandemic, we can stay resilient. Did you hear all three steps? Okay, even if you didn't, here they are. Number one, introduce the show on its purpose and introduce the host and why they're the one to lead the journey. I'm Adam Grant and this is Work Life, my podcast with Ted. I'm an organizational psychologist. I study how to make work not suck. In this show, I'm inviting myself inside the minds of some truly unusual people because they've mastered something I wish everyone knew about work. Step two, state the objective of the episode and make it clear to the listener what value the episode will provide to them. Today, remote work. How we can communicate better with and without a camera, no potatoes required. And how even during this unprecedented pandemic, we can stay resilient. And finally, we've already sparked relatability in the cold open story. Now it's time to spark some curiosity. And with those lessons in hand, you might actually be more prepared than you think to make remote work work. Amazing. Adam Grant sparked curiosity here by saying, you already know the answer. You might already know how to make this work. But he doesn't tell you what the answer is. He just says, you might already know it. Masterfully done. I'm curious. That episode is called How Science Can Fix Remote Work. If you do want to check that out. Okay, so one more example. Now, the first example you heard, how this can be accomplished with a host read. The second example, you heard a more heavily produced interview story that sparked some relatability in addition to some voiceovers and a host read. And this next example is where a podcast will take a clip from later in the episode and just play it right at the beginning before going into the theme song in the intro. This example is one of the best that I have come across. And it's very close to my heart because it comes from just one of the best shows out there in my opinion, one of my favorite podcasts and really the podcast that brought me into the fold as a podcaster. And it's from how I built this with GuyRaz from NPR. In this example, you are going to hear how these three steps. So number one, introduce the show and the host and why the host is qualified to lead the journey. Step two, demonstrate the value of the episode and what value it's going to provide to the listener. And number three, spark relatability and curiosity. This example is going to achieve all of those things in 70 seconds flat. I left that morning for the office, knowing that's the day and I was sitting in the office waiting and my partner was on the phone, talking to the lawyers, you know, done the eyes and across the T's on the contract. Well, you in that day, you're about to go and sign your name on the contract that very day. Yeah, within like within an hour, where we were we were ready to get in the car and go over. And I said, I got to take a walk around the block. And so I did. I went out to the parking lot and I just just started weeping. You couldn't even want to do it. I didn't want to do it. From NPR, it's how I built this show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists and the stories behind the movements they built. I'm Guy Ross and on the show today, how Gary Erickson used his mom's recipe and his dad's first name to create Cliffbar, one of the most popular energy bars in the country. Pretty clean, huh? That's how the pros do it. So now you've heard three different examples of amazing podcasts achieving the three things in the first five minutes. You heard from Pat Flynn how to do that with a quick cold open host read. It took him two minutes and twenty seconds to achieve all those things. You heard Adam Grant's work life used a more highly produced method to achieve those things by telling a story using interview content and weaving in voiceovers and host reads. And then you heard how I built this do it by simply bringing forward a really compelling clip from later in the episode and playing it right at the start. Those are three different ways to do it. And I encourage you to get creative and think of other ways to achieve those three things in the first five minutes. And of course those three things are number one, introduce the show, introduce the host and why they are the ones to bring us on the journey. Number two is demonstrate the value that the episode will provide to the listener in very, very clear language. And number three, to really knock it out of the park, spark some curiosity and spark some relatability in your listener, meaning make it so that they relate to somebody that they're hearing from. If you can achieve those three things in the first five minutes of your podcast episode, you will have won the moment of choice and you will have made it so much easier for you not only to get more listeners, but to keep them. So I'd love right here now to issue you a challenge. For the next podcast episode that you release, put some extra emphasis on the intro and see if you can achieve those three things in the first five minutes of your podcast episode. And when you release that episode, head over into the Grow the Show Facebook group and post a link to the episode and I'll give it a listen and let you know if I think you've achieved those three things in the first five minutes. If you think this episode has helped you even a little bit to grow and monetize your podcast, please rate and review if you're on Apple podcasts and subscribe in your favorite podcast app. This episode of Grow the Show was hosted and produced by me with post production by Max Graham. Here's a very special thanks to the folks behind Smart Passive Income, Work Life with Adam Grant, and how I built this from NPR. For Q9 Productions and Grow the Show, my name is Kevin Schmidland. See you next week.