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I've never heard a podcast listener say: I wish my favorite
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podcaster cared less about their show.
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Instead, they tend to be appreciative and reward those podcasters
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who work to master their craft.
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Today's episode is brought to you by the Advancing Podcasting
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community at advancingpodcasting.xyz.
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Because why would I do anything normal?
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It's a special community just for listeners and readers of
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Podcast Pontifications and it's populated by like-minded working
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podcasters just like you who also want to make podcasting better.
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You're already listening to the show.
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So why not extend the conversation and your influence
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on the future of podcasting?
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Evo Terra:
Hello, and welcome to another Podcast Pontifications with me, Evo Terra.
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Making a podcast that people want to recommend takes...
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a lot.
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A lot of time, as you know.
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A lot of effort, often from lots of other people.
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I've got a full team of people putting in the effort.
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And, of course, a lot of skill by those peoples.
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But many podcasters don't put in a lot of time, effort, or skill into their show.
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In fact, I'll go out on a limb and say most of the millions of podcasts
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available in whatever directory you use right now fall into that category.
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Most podcasts are there where the host or the hosts didn't bother
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to master the craft of podcasting, and, yes, podcasting, like most
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other pursuits is, in fact, a craft.
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And like other pursuits, the access to the tools and technology to ply that
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craft, broadly speaking, is increasing.
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But, a lower bar to the tech and the tools doesn't necessarily mean a lower
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bar to acquire the skills necessary to master the art of podcasting, as you
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can tell by listening to a lot of shows.
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So get better.
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Work on mastering your craft.
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We all need to do that.
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If anything I just said up there describes you, then seriously,
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there are people out there who will help you improve your skills.
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You can take a class on how to make better-sounding audio.
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There are some masterful people that I have in my repertoire that I would
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be happy to refer you to who teach people how to make amazing sound
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with the equipment that they have.
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You can enroll in classes that promise to build specific skills, not general,
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interested-in-podcasting basics.
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This whole week we've been talking about what happens
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when your growth has plateaued.
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So you get the concept.
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You don't need Podcasting 101 stuff anymore.
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You need skill mastery, and you need to figure out where your skills are lacking.
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You might need to invest in new equipment.
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You don't start there.
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You should not have to invest.
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People can make amazing sounding podcasts and do make amazing sounding podcasts
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with the cheapest microphones on the planet with free audio editing software.
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This is not something you have to buy your way into.
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You may have to pay someone to teach you how to do it better, or you may have to
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pay to acquire masterful skills someone else is giving to you or selling to you.
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But you do not have to start by dropping a whole bunch of cash.
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If you're going to invest, and you probably should invest, then
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you want to invest in your time.
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But, you're saying, okay, Evo, what if I've done all of that?
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What if I know I'm making a masterful show, mastered the craft of podcasting,
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I've done everything I can to make sure that my show is easy for people
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to recommend, easy for my listeners, my hardcore audience, to recommend.
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And I've even gone so far as to survey my audience, the people who listen to
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me every day, week, month, whatever.
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I've surveyed them.
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It's a good bit of information.
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I know exactly what they want from me, and I know how to deliver the unexpected.
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I've done all of those things, but I'm still not growing.
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How do I blast past that plateau, you say.
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Well, there are a couple of ways you can do that.
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I think one is that you can hire someone to make sure that you're
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sure about all of those things.
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Hire someone to audit all those things that you think you're doing right.
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Let them audit that survey that you put together and your survey data.
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There's a lot of information locked inside of surveys that we don't quite
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get because we're too close to the data.
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So having someone else look at it, they might go, "Oh, here's an interesting
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point" that you didn't even realize.
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You may pay someone to take an objective look at how you think you're making
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it easy to recommend your show.
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What are you doing?
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Have you done all those things we talked about yesterday?
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You may say yes, but paying someone to audit the process can
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give you that objective opinion.
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That same person might even be able to interview your existing, long-time
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listeners and get honest evaluations.
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They may not be telling you the truth, your audience.
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They might tell that to someone who you've hired to do this.
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And once you've paid that person to audit your entire process,
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then act on their findings.
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If it points you in various directions, take those steps.
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That's option one.
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The second path is strive for contentment, I guess.
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I mean, maybe the audience you have built right now, your loyal audience
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who hangs out with you every time you put an episode out, the 100 people, or
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that 1000 people, or the 100,000 people, whatever, maybe that's what you have.
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And it's going to stay niche and around that group with very modest goals.
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Very modest growth, I should say.
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Is that enough for you to achieve your goals?
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For many, it certainly is.
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Maybe that's good enough for what you want to do, but maybe it's not.
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And if it's not, then it's not.
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If that's not going forward there that may tell you that that's not going forward.
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Try something else.
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Now I know you're asking, well, hang on a minute.
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Are my two options.
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Only pay someone to see if I'm doing a good enough job.
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Deal with just live with low growth.
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Can I market or advertise my way to achieve my goals?
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Yeah.
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Well, as I said in the first episode of this series that can, and oftentimes
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does work for some podcasters, but before you start throwing money down
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the promotional shoot, remember there's no substitute for fixing the problems
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with your show's recommendable.
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Spending money to market or advertise or otherwise promote a show that you are
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most ardent fans can't be bothered to recommend seems rather unproductive to me.
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Now, speaking of unproductive things yesterday, I mentioned I was eating my own
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dog food and I've put my own survey out to survey you the podcast pontification.
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And thank you very much to the nine of you.
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Yes.
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That's the total number nine of you who have taken the five
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minutes and filled out the survey.
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Now, if you're not one of those nine, I would greatly appreciate it.
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I know you're busy.
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The weekend's coming up.
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We don't put episodes out of Podcast Pontifications on Friday,
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so maybe now's a great time and I would greatly appreciate it.
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If you would fill out that survey.
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I'm already seeing some excellent data and suggestions from there.
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So these are helping Podcast Pontifications get better in the future.
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Your input matters to me Podcast Pontifications.com/survey, simple, but
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name of the website end slash survey.
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And yes, there'll be a link to it in the episode notes as well.
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Now, if you received value from my breaking down and unpacking of
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the recommend ability challenges.
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I thank you very much to Tom Webster from Edison research for inspiring
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this talk with your inspiring keynote from podcast movement 2021.
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If you got value from my thoughts, please return that value.
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We call that value for value in the podcasting world by visiting,
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buy me a coffee.com/ebook.
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And I shall be back on Monday with yet another Podcast Pontifications cheers
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Podcast Pontifications is written and narrated by Evo Terra.
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He's on a mission to make podcasting better.
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Links to everything mentioned in today's episode are in the notes
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section of your podcast listening map.
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A written-to-be-read article based on today's episode is available at
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podcastpontifications.com where you'll also find a video version and a corrected
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transcript, both created by Allie Press.
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Podcast Pontifications is a production of Simpler Media.
