The podcasting landscape is often clouded by persistent myths that can derail the efforts of even the most dedicated creators. In this enlightening session, Dave Jackson confronts the widely held belief that consistency in episode release is the primary driver of success. While he acknowledges the importance of being reliable in scheduling, he vehemently asserts that the heart of a successful podcast lies in its content. Jackson's philosophy is clear: a compelling episode that resonates with listeners is infinitely more valuable than a mediocre one released on time.

"Just be consistent" is not accurate, and will waste your time.

Drawing from his extensive experience, Jackson shares insights on cultivating an audience rather than merely accumulating episodes. He emphasizes that many podcasters mistakenly believe that their consistency will impress potential sponsors, but the reality is that advertisers prioritize understanding the audience's size and engagement levels. Jackson encourages listeners to shift their focus from worrying about the number of episodes produced to genuinely understanding and catering to their audience's wants and needs.

Through anecdotes and practical advice, Jackson illustrates the importance of audience interaction, such as conducting surveys to gather feedback and adjust content accordingly. He urges podcasters to embrace the challenge of creating high-quality, meaningful content, viewing every setback as a learning opportunity rather than a failure. Ultimately, this episode serves as a powerful reminder that success in podcasting is not just about persistence but about crafting content that engages and resonates with listeners.

Takeaways:

• Consistency in podcasting is important, but content quality is even more crucial for success.
• Your podcast is merely a tool to build an audience, which is essential for monetization.
• Focus on understanding your audience's needs and preferences to create valuable content.
• Many aspiring podcasters misplace their efforts on equipment rather than improving their content.
• Don't be afraid to ask your audience what they want to hear; feedback is vital.
• Persistence in producing episodes is admirable, but engagement metrics are what truly matter.

Mentioned in this episode:

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Podcas Hot Seat

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy

Dave Jackson: 00:00:00

When I hear things in podcasting repeated over and over that just aren't helpful, I'm like, ah, time to hit record.

Podcast Host: 00:00:08

Welcome to your podcast consultant.

Podcast Host: 00:00:11

Small lessons with big value.

Podcast Host: 00:00:15

With more than a decade of experience and millions of downloads, this hall of fame podcaster is a featured speaker, author, and mentor to thousands.

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Now he wants to work with you.

Podcast Host: 00:00:29

He's your podcast consultant, Dave Jackson.

Dave Jackson: 00:00:34

All right, first thing I gotta say up front is, anyone who thinks this, you're not dumb, you're not stupid, but you are kind of wrong.

Dave Jackson: 00:00:43

And that's based on the fact that you've probably been fed some content that is misguided.

Dave Jackson: 00:00:51

And one of them is, you need to be consistent.

Dave Jackson: 00:00:53

In fact, I've heard it say, just be consistent.

Dave Jackson: 00:00:57

And you've heard me talk on this show that, yes, you want to be consistent in schedule.

Dave Jackson: 00:01:04

It shows you as reliable.

Dave Jackson: 00:01:07

But as I've said, I'd rather get a late show that was good than an on time show that was meh.

Dave Jackson: 00:01:14

So it's really about the content.

Dave Jackson: 00:01:16

Be consistent in schedule, but be really consistent in content.

Dave Jackson: 00:01:22

Because I've seen this multiple times in the past 10 days, and that is, I have X amount of episodes.

Dave Jackson: 00:01:29

I've been doing it for X amount of years.

Dave Jackson: 00:01:31

And first off, again, kudos.

Dave Jackson: 00:01:34

Launching a podcast is not easy.

Dave Jackson: 00:01:37

Other people will tell you, oh, just start.

Dave Jackson: 00:01:39

It's easy money from.

Dave Jackson: 00:01:40

No, it's, it's not super easy.

Dave Jackson: 00:01:43

It's.

Dave Jackson: 00:01:43

It's kind of simple.

Dave Jackson: 00:01:45

Find out what your audience wants and give it to them.

Dave Jackson: 00:01:48

But that's not easy.

Dave Jackson: 00:01:50

And so I'll hear, yes, I've been doing it consistently for X amount of years.

Dave Jackson: 00:01:54

I have X amount of episodes.

Dave Jackson: 00:01:57

But then I always hear, I'm trying to find sponsors.

Dave Jackson: 00:02:03

And when you go to a sponsor and you say, hi, I've been podcasting for, let's just say five years.

Dave Jackson: 00:02:09

I have 300 episodes.

Dave Jackson: 00:02:12

They are not impressed because their number one question is, who is your audience and how many of those are listening to your show?

Dave Jackson: 00:02:22

And so I say this, you do not monetize a podcast.

Dave Jackson: 00:02:29

You monetize the audience.

Dave Jackson: 00:02:32

The podcast is the tool that you use to draw an audience, to build an audience.

Dave Jackson: 00:02:42

Think of it as the fertilizer that makes the rose bush grow.

Dave Jackson: 00:02:50

My brother has a bunch of hummingbird feeders in his backyard, and it's amazing to watch these small little birds fly in.

Dave Jackson: 00:03:00

So how.

Dave Jackson: 00:03:01

Why do they go to his backyard?

Dave Jackson: 00:03:02

Because he has these feeders specifically made for them, specifically filled with food that they love.

Dave Jackson: 00:03:10

And what do you know he has a group of hummingbirds that during the summer, like, hey, I'm going over to Doug's house.

Dave Jackson: 00:03:18

He's got the goods.

Dave Jackson: 00:03:20

And it's amazing.

Dave Jackson: 00:03:22

It's absolutely amazing.

Dave Jackson: 00:04:14

And so it's not how many episodes?

Dave Jackson: 00:04:18

Again, I'm impressed with that because I know that it's not easy and it's not the number of episodes.

Dave Jackson: 00:04:24

What you've proven is you are persistent and that is impressive.

Dave Jackson: 00:04:31

But not to advertisers.

Dave Jackson: 00:04:33

They want to know how big is your audience and who are they.

Dave Jackson: 00:04:38

And if your answer to that question is, I don't know, you are headed in the wrong direction.

Dave Jackson: 00:04:46

And another thing that I've noticed is that when I talk about audience surveys, I'm doing one in December, actually end of November.

Dave Jackson: 00:04:57

I'm surveying my audience because I want to know what they want.

Dave Jackson: 00:05:05

I'm in the kitchen cooking.

Dave Jackson: 00:05:07

What are you in the mood for?

Dave Jackson: 00:05:09

Because if the numbers go down, so many people think it's because of my microphone.

Dave Jackson: 00:05:17

Maybe I need to switch media hosts.

Dave Jackson: 00:05:20

Maybe I need new artwork.

Dave Jackson: 00:05:23

And almost always in that case, unless your artwork was drawn by a three year old with a crayon, your artwork is probably okay.

Dave Jackson: 00:05:31

Can it always be better?

Dave Jackson: 00:05:32

Sure.

Dave Jackson: 00:05:33

But it's not the reason people aren't listening.

Dave Jackson: 00:05:36

And it's not because your media host, your media host, to me, it's like, which.

Dave Jackson: 00:05:44

Which car do you want to drive long distance with?

Dave Jackson: 00:05:48

Do you want to go in a minivan with a bunch of cupholders and really comfortable seats?

Dave Jackson: 00:05:53

Or do you want to go in the Toyota Corolla, which is not a bad car.

Dave Jackson: 00:05:56

I have one, but I don't know that I would want to drive cross country with that.

Dave Jackson: 00:06:01

And it's about the interface, but in the end, they Both can do 80 miles an hour.

Dave Jackson: 00:06:07

It's just.

Dave Jackson: 00:06:08

Is one more comfortable than the other?

Dave Jackson: 00:06:10

Neither one is going to get you a bigger audience because people aren't tuning in.

Dave Jackson: 00:06:17

Hey, have you heard this new show they're on?

Dave Jackson: 00:06:19

Captivate?

Dave Jackson: 00:06:20

Nobody cares.

Dave Jackson: 00:06:22

Nobody cares.

Dave Jackson: 00:06:23

What they tell their friends about is the content.

Dave Jackson: 00:06:27

U or Audio Technica ATR: 2100

Dave Jackson: 00:06:35

Both those microphones are under $100 and they're perfectly fine.

Dave Jackson: 00:06:40

If your audience isn't saying your audio sounds bad, you probably don't need a new microphone.

Dave Jackson: 00:06:45

When do you change out a microphone?

Dave Jackson: 00:06:47

When your audience says it's bad, or B, you don't feel confident behind the microphone I'm using right now?

Dave Jackson: 00:06:54

A Rode Pod mic.

Dave Jackson: 00:06:55

It's $200.

Dave Jackson: 00:06:56

I have a Shure SM7B sitting behind me.

Dave Jackson: 00:06:59

That's a $400 microphone.

Dave Jackson: 00:07:01

Why do I use this microphone?

Dave Jackson: 00:07:02

Because I like the sound of my voice on it.

Dave Jackson: 00:07:05

And so.

Dave Jackson: 00:07:05

But my audience could care less.

Dave Jackson: 00:07:07

Nobody's ever said, hey, your.

Dave Jackson: 00:07:09

Your podcast sounds like crap.

Dave Jackson: 00:07:11

So your media host isn't going to grow your audience.

Dave Jackson: 00:07:14

Your audio isn't going to grow your audience unless it was really bad.

Dave Jackson: 00:07:18

Your media host isn't going to grow your audience.

Dave Jackson: 00:07:20

But guess what all those are.

Dave Jackson: 00:07:23

They're an easy fix.

Dave Jackson: 00:07:24

I can buy a microphone, plug it in, and have that done in, you know, five minutes if I go to Best Buy, which is not where I would buy my microphones, but you get the idea.

Dave Jackson: 00:07:37

I could change the artwork in less than an hour.

Dave Jackson: 00:07:40

I could do all this stuff, and it seems like I'm making progress.

Dave Jackson: 00:07:44

But you're keeping yourself busy when you're not really addressing the key ingredient.

Dave Jackson: 00:07:51

The key ingredient in an apple pie is the apples, right?

Dave Jackson: 00:07:55

But we're going to focus on the crust.

Dave Jackson: 00:07:57

We're going to focus on all this other stuff.

Dave Jackson: 00:07:59

And look, a bad crust can ruin a pie.

Dave Jackson: 00:08:01

But you know what I'm saying here?

Dave Jackson: 00:08:02

It's the content.

Dave Jackson: 00:08:03

And that's the hard part, because we rarely get a chance to sit face to face with our audience and go, so, what are you looking for?

Dave Jackson: 00:08:13

What can I do to make the show better?

Dave Jackson: 00:08:16

Unless you do one thing.

Dave Jackson: 00:08:18

Ask them.

Dave Jackson: 00:08:20

And here's the thing.

Dave Jackson: 00:08:21

My next episode is going to be about this.

Dave Jackson: 00:08:24

When I was in college, the first time I was putting myself through school, I was running a household.

Dave Jackson: 00:08:30

My mother had recently passed away, and I didn't really care about grades.

Dave Jackson: 00:08:34

I just want to get through this.

Dave Jackson: 00:08:36

In fact, my last semester, I was kind of like, I'm either going to die or I'm going to graduate.

Dave Jackson: 00:08:43

My second time, when I went to get my teaching degree, I was kind of like, all right, well, I don't have all that going on now, and I'm actually going to try to get good grades.

Dave Jackson: 00:08:53

And it was kind of frightening because it's one thing to get bad grades when you have that reaction of, like, well, what was I supposed to do?

Dave Jackson: 00:09:00

I was working 30 hours a week and running a house and blah, blah, blah.

Dave Jackson: 00:09:04

And that's why I got bad grades.

Dave Jackson: 00:09:05

But now, what if I tried and I still got bad grades?

Dave Jackson: 00:09:07

Would that mean I'm stupid?

Dave Jackson: 00:09:09

Ooh, that's kind of scary.

Dave Jackson: 00:09:11

There's the old line for singers.

Dave Jackson: 00:09:13

If you sing in your Range.

Dave Jackson: 00:09:15

Everyone thinks your range is endless, but the minute you sing outside of it and go a little too high, everybody goes, oh, not as good as I thought she was.

Dave Jackson: 00:09:24

Not as good as he is.

Dave Jackson: 00:09:27

And maybe that's why we shy away from really focusing on the content.

Dave Jackson: 00:09:31

Because what if I try to make really good content and I still fail?

Dave Jackson: 00:09:38

I'm going down swinging myself.

Dave Jackson: 00:09:41

I'm going down knowing I based my decisions on what my audience wanted.

Dave Jackson: 00:09:46

Maybe it didn't resonate.

Dave Jackson: 00:09:48

Remember, there are two ingredients.

Dave Jackson: 00:09:49

There's content and there's delivery.

Dave Jackson: 00:09:52

Maybe you just don't like my somewhat kind of like, look, I'm just telling it like it is kind of style my sarcasm for whatever reason.

Dave Jackson: 00:10:01

Maybe you just don't like the way I come across and I get that I'm not going to please everyone.

Dave Jackson: 00:10:06

I do know I want to help you.

Dave Jackson: 00:10:08

I do know I can see and understand what you're going through and point you in the right direction.

Dave Jackson: 00:10:16

The question is, are you ready to do something that might be a little scary?

Dave Jackson: 00:10:22

And I'm here to tell you, I've started over probably 30 podcasts and some of them just didn't work.

Dave Jackson: 00:10:28

And I can tell you why.

Dave Jackson: 00:10:30

And that's one of the reasons why for me, anytime you try anything and it doesn't work, it's not failure, it's a lesson.

Dave Jackson: 00:10:37

It's a learning opportunity.

Dave Jackson: 00:10:40

And then you take that knowledge and you turn around and you put it back into podcast number two.

Dave Jackson: 00:10:46

It's really that simple.

Dave Jackson: 00:10:47

It's not the end of the line.

Dave Jackson: 00:10:50

It's the beginning of a new one.

Dave Jackson: 00:10:52

Now, if you need help with that, simply go out to the Show Notes.

Dave Jackson: 00:10:58

I'll have a link there where if you want to hire me for one on one consulting, you can.

Dave Jackson: 00:11:02

But I'm here to tell you it's a much better deal to join the school of podcasting for a month.

Dave Jackson: 00:11:08

You have 30 days to figure out if you like it or not.

Dave Jackson: 00:11:11

I will give you your money back and you get unlimited coaching.

Dave Jackson: 00:11:15

So you can buy coaching once for about double the price.

Dave Jackson: 00:11:19

Or you could join the school of podcasting and get unlimited amounts of me, as well as step by step tutorials as well as an amazing podcast community.

Dave Jackson: 00:11:29

So don't be afraid, because you can do this.

Dave Jackson: 00:11:32

You've done hard things in the past and you can do this.

Dave Jackson: 00:11:36

I look forward to working with you.

Dave Jackson: 00:11:38

I'm Dave Jackson.

Dave Jackson: 00:11:40

I help podcasters.

Dave Jackson: 00:11:41

It's what I do.

Dave Jackson: 00:11:43

And I can't wait to be your podcast consultant.