No. 009 A New Way to Think About Your Show’s U.S.P.

One of the common threads from the speakers at Authority Rainmaker was the importance of differentiation. In this new episode of The Showrunner, Jerod and Jon provide a new way to view the unique selling proposition of your show.

After opening with a brief discussion about incredible benefits you can gain from taking online relationships offline, Jerod and Jon dig into differentiation.

During their discussion, you’ll learn:

• What Sally Hogshead meant by “different is better than better” (and how it will help your show).
• Why you need to know what your “unique show positioning” is
• How to differentiate your show through the format you choose
• Why being “unique” does not mean doing something that’s never been done before
• Other ways to differentiate, including: style, schedule, timing, take
• Why you should actually be glad when some people don’t like your show

Jon also makes an essential point on the importance of quality over quantity.

Then we dig into our weekly listener question, which came via an iTunes review. A listener asked about how copyright laws impact the music choices we make on the show.

This week’s podcast recommendations are:

• Jon: Really Good Reads Podcast by Sam Leslie
• Jerod: Are Productivity Articles Making You Unproductive? — No Sidebar podcast by Brian Gardner

And we end the show with a discussion about calls to action, plus a different call to action for listeners that you won’t want to miss!

Listen, learn, enjoy:

No. 009 A New Way to Think about Your Show’s U.S.P.

Jerod Morris: This is Rainmaker.FM, the digital marketing podcast network. It’s built on the Rainmaker Platform, which empowers you to build your own digital marketing and sales platform. Start your free 14-day trial at RainmakerPlatform.com.

Welcome to The Showrunner, where we have one goal: to teach you how to develop, launch, and run a remarkable show. Ready?

As always, I’m your host, Jerod Morris, one of the VPs of Rainmaker.FM for Copyblogger Media, and I am joined, as always, by my friend Jonny Nastor, the showrunner of Hack the Entrepreneur.

Jon, a couple weeks ago, we had an entertaining and exciting week in Denver. You and I actually got to meet, and not only did we get to meet, but we actually had the great fortune and great pleasure to meet a number of people who are listeners to The Showrunner podcast and people who are inside The Showrunner Podcasting Course when we organized a lunch on Friday at Authority Rainmaker and got everybody together, which was absolutely one of the highlights of the entire conference.

Jonny Nastor: The Showrunner huddle.

Jerod Morris: Yeah.

Jonny Nastor: I still have the original artwork that was made for it, and we had two tables full. It was cool. That was definitely a highlight for me.

Jerod Morris: Yeah, you got the original artwork, and then I had Mica do a second copy. It’s not the original. I’m not as cool as you, but I’m hoping to get that up somewhere in the background for when we do our Hangouts, because it looks pretty cool.

It’s one of those great things. You have a podcast, and obviously podcasts are great at connection, but there’s that next level of connection then, when you get to actually meet people in person, and there’s nothing quite like taking an online relationship offline.

To anybody listening, to you listening, when you do get a chance to meet people who listen to your show outside of the show in real life, do it. It makes the experience so much more rich, I think.

I want to spend a couple minutes here at the beginning of this episode, Jon, talking about one or two takeaways that we each had from our tables. At my table, I got to talk with Dirk Beveridge, Sonia Thompson, Lisa and Rick Smith, and Zach Herbert, all folks who have great ideas for shows and great plans, and they’re really enthusiastic.

One of the big topics that we hit on was email, and we spent some time discussing email opt-ins and the importance of giving people a reason to sign up for your email list, making it special — like what is the incentive? I don’t want to go into this too much, because I think you and I are actually going to talk about this in much more depth on the next episode of The Showrunner, but it was great to exchange some ideas and hear with what people are thinking about doing for their email incentives and their email opt-ins.

I want to highlight, right here at the beginning, the importance of thinking about email, thinking about building a list, and giving your audience that chance to self-select themselves as more serious members of your audience from the beginning by starting out with emails as part of your overall plan right away.

Jonny Nastor: I feel bad because you have everyone’s names that were at your table, and I’m notoriously terrible for names, and I apologize.

Jerod Morris: Wait. What he’s saying is, I love you all more than Jon does.

Jonny Nastor: Really? Wow. I’m terrible. I just learned your name, Jerod.

Jerod Morris: That’s why you were calling me ‘Jimmy’ all weekend? All right. I got it.

Jonny Nastor: I want to say that I like, in your intro, how you said “my friend Jonny Nastor,” because it’s always been “my co-host” before, but now that we’ve met, now it’s “my friend.” I like that.

Jerod Morris: Right. Exactly.

Jonny Nastor: I noticed that change. I like that.

Jerod Morris: Good. I did that just for you.

Jonny Nastor: My table was really interesting because we all went around and talked about what we’re up to, but then we discussed format a lot. Everyone seems like they’re trying to come up with that unique format that differentiates them in their marketplace, which I love because it’s not always about the better show or the better interview or the better artwork. You have to differentiate yourself in that marketplace. I love that I could see the gears turning.

People are trying to find that slightly unique angle to hit the market and to stand out, and I really, really liked that, because I wanted to hit that home, obviously, in the course. I’m glad that did seem to catch. It seem like that shortest lunch, actually, that I had in years, and I think we were there for an hour. All the sudden, it was like, “Whoa, it’s time to go.” We got caught up in our conversations and had a lot of laughs. It was fun.

Jerod Morris: I know. No, it went very fast. Hopefully that’s something that we can do in the future. I will say, real quick, I know Podcast Movement is coming up for the end of July and August. You can get the details on it at PodcastMovement.com, but I know there are already several people inside of the course who are going. If any listeners go, we’re going to try and do something, some kind of meet up, to get together with everybody. Again, I can’t recommend it enough. Every single time that I’ve gotten a chance to meet someone offline that I only have an online relationship with, it is always so rewarding.

When it comes to building a remarkable audience experience for somebody or for a group of people, which is what we’re teaching and trying to demonstrate here on The Showrunner, there’s no better way to take the next step than to actually get to know people and meet people, and you’ve got these real faces that you’ve met in real life that you’re talking to while you’re on the show. Just a great experience.

Jon, I appreciate you mentioning the importance of differentiation, because that is actually going to be our topic today after a quick break. Wait, break? We don’t do an ad here. I don’t know.

Jonny Nastor: Maybe we should.

Jerod Morris: Well, maybe we should. Okay. We’ll do some kind of ad, and then we’ll come back. We’ll advertise something, and then we’ll come back and talk about differentiation.

What should we advertise? Let’s advertise Hack the Entrepreneur. Do you have a big episode coming out that you want to point people to?

Jonny Nastor: Yeah, I did this interview yesterday, so I’ll release it at the time of this Showrunner episode, but his name is Carl Smith. He’s from Florida. I had actually never heard of him before, but he came up on my radar, and he owns a web design company. He does an awesome podcast that I listened to last night called Friendly Fire.

I actually said this at the end of the interview to him. I was like, “Carl, I know that this is going to be a popular interview when I have laughed like 20 times just from my engagement within our conversation.” We went places that were really fun and we really, really hit a chord together. Carl Smith, at nGen Works, and that will be released on Hack the Entrepreneur now, and you should go listen to it.

Jerod Morris: Excellent. Thank you for that, Jon. Now, let’s talk about the main topic of this episode. We’re going to talk about the importance of differentiation and being unique. I know that this is already a topic that we’ve covered in a previous episode of The Showrunner not too long ago, maybe six weeks ago, but it bears digging into again. One of the reasons is that at Authority Rainmaker, it was one of the themes that was woven throughout a number of the presentations.

I think that’s why we wanted to underscore it again here, because as I was talking to people individually about their shows, it’s one element that I think people continue to overlook. They have X idea for their show, but then when you ask them and dig deeper, “Okay, what makes it different? What makes it unique? Why is your show going to separate itself from the ten other shows out there like it?” people don’t always have an answer for that. I think it’s very important to have that answer.

What Sally Hogshead Meant By “Different Is Better Than Better” (and How It Will Help Your Show)

Jerod Morris: As we went through the presentations at Authority Rainmaker, Sally Hogshead, for example, one of the keynote speakers, had two memorable quotes, which were “Different is better than better,” and “Don’t change who you are, become more of who you are.” Her whole big idea is that what makes you different is also what makes you fascinating. The same can be applied to your podcast. Joe Pulizzi talked about ‘content tilt,’ which basically is, what is your unique angle on your topic? What makes it different?

Ann Handley and Bernadette Jiwa both talked about creating better connections with your users through content that is unique and special.

Some goofball in a vest talked about USP, unique selling propositions, unique selling points as a piece that ties together the four central elements of remarkable shows. You can be authentic, you can be useful, you can be sustainable, you can be profitable, but to really take that next step to being remarkable, there’s got to me something different, something unique.

Let me use that as a preface, Jon, and kick it over to you, because I know you have very, very strong ideas on this. As you said, it’s something that you were even talking about with some fellow Showrunner listeners.

Why You Need to Know What Your “Unique Show Positioning” Is

Jonny Nastor: I’m trying to come up with USP — unique selling proposition — but it could be ‘unique show proposition’ or ‘positioning?’

Jerod Morris: Unique show positioning. There you go.

Jonny Nastor: That’s USP for podcasting or for Showrunner.

Jerod Morris: I love it. That’s great.

Jonny Nastor: I was just trying to come up with that as I’m talking.

Jerod Morris: I think that’s good, because sometimes people’s eyes glaze over when they hear ‘unique selling proposition’ only because it’s so prevalent.

Jonny Nastor: Yeah, we’ve heard it so many times.

Jerod Morris: Yeah, but I like this — unique show positioning.

Jonny Nastor: There we go. That’s awesome.

Jerod Morris: That’s good.

Jonny Nastor: Okay, we’re done. That’s it. That’s great.

Jerod Morris: Thank you everybody for listening.

Jonny Nastor: Oh, but Sally Hogshead — “Different is better than better.” That, to me, was worth the trip. That’s amazing. “Different is better than better.” That sums up so much of what I’ve learned since starting Hack the Entrepreneur and having people resonate with what they say is my honesty and being totally genuine, but I’ve just learned to be myself to the exponential degree and push it. I think people will probably realize that about me. Even my recommendations of shows to listen to, lots of them are pretty wacky, and the person is just themselves so much.

You don’t have to be like me. You don’t have to be like Jerod. You don’t have to be like anybody else but yourself, and don’t be a mediocre version of yourself. Really push every part of you so that it’s amplified, because people resonate with that. They resonate with people who are being human, and there’s always that focus of being better and being the best, and it’s like, “No, you don’t.” Just “different is better than better.” I love that.

Jerod Morris: The irony is, a lot of times, we shave down our sharper edges to try and fit in, or we think that we should be trying to appeal to a more mass audience and that we need to become more generalized, but really, that’s not a recipe for success. Maybe in 2006, when podcasts were first starting, with that many options out there, you could be really general and try to appeal to everybody, but that’s not really going to work now. You really are better off embracing your differences, and like she says, “Don’t change who you are, become more of who you are.”

Don’t be afraid of those elements about you that make you different or this different take that you have or being afraid that you’re going to be out there on an island a little bit. You want to be out there on a bit of an island so that people can come over and join you on the island as opposed to getting lost on someone else’s island. Again, there were so many lessons at the conference, as there as always are, that were inspiring and empowering. That, to me, was one of the main ones.

Again, I think it’s something that we’ve hit on before, but it can’t be stressed enough, especially for people who are developing shows, but even for people who have already launched and are already running shows. It’s not too late to pivot a little bit and differentiate yourself even more.

Let’s break down a little bit, Jon, some different ways that people can differentiate their shows, because I think sometimes — I’ve learned this by talking to people — people have rigid ideas of what differentiates your show. Maybe they think name and artwork, like that’s pretty obvious, and having some wacky topic idea. But there’s a lot of ways, some of them subtle, to differentiate your show. Do you want to cover a couple of those?

How to Differentiate Your Show through the Format You Choose

Jonny Nastor: Yeah, format, I guess, is the really big one, right? Format. When I’ve talked about the Wild West of podcasting, to me, it’s format. Format is very Wild West for the fact that you can do things now that’s haven’t been done still in podcasting. When StartUp came out last year — StartUp is not a great name for a podcast. The artwork was terrible. People will still talk about that, the little hand and a blue thing, but the format was everything people talked about, because it was basically radio in an on-demand sense.

It was well-produced, and the format was interesting. Not that you have to go that far, because I didn’t go that far with my show, but I really focused on getting a format that stood out, that caught people’s attention, and that made it different from other shows. I’m sure my show format was being copied from things and probably has even inadvertently, and you should copy my show if you like my format. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel of any of this stuff.

Why Being “Unique” Does Not Mean Doing Something that’s Never Been Done Before

Jonny Nastor: Find something in a different market that works really well, and adapt it to your marketplace. It’s art. Art is built off of other people’s art. Typically, that’s just how we do it. It’s an evolution, typically enough until there’s this revolution in the art space, and that’s what happening in podcasting. These little revolutions happen when something like StartUp comes out, then there’s huge new group of shows come out and sound like it, which is cool as long you differentiate still on top of what, say, StartUp or what I or anybody else has created.

You don’t have to sit there at your desk and bang your head against the wall and be like, “I need something that has never been done before.” It’s not going to happen, probably at least in radio. Listen to radio if you want to get ideas. Watch TV. Every bit of media you’re consuming, think of some way you could bring that your market in podcasting. Even one tiny little piece of a TV show or something that you find engaging, be like “How could I put that into a podcast or into my podcast?” That, to me, is where this really happens, and that’s the big one, format. It’s one that I focus on a lot with my show, and I think that’s my differentiation point.

Other Ways to Differentiate, Including: Style, Schedule, Timing, Take

Jerod Morris: Man, that’s a great point, because I think a lot of people get paralyzed thinking that ‘differentiation’ means something wholly unique, like it’s brand new. It doesn’t. It can be a new application of some idea over here that’s never been done over here. That’s the thing, is to keep your eyes open for all these different ways that you can differentiate, right? You can differentiate with style. I think we try and do that on The Showrunner, where we’ve evolved into a very conversational style and also one where we let people peek behind the hood.

We show our mistakes. We show our work. We want to give people a little peek behind the scenes to how all of this works. That’s a differentiator.

Schedule can be a differentiator. You are doing three shows a week, which differentiates you from a lot of shows in your topic market. Timing, which goes along with schedule, can be the same thing. The Assembly Call, it’s a show that takes place immediately after games. It’s not like there’s a set Monday/Friday schedule, but there’s a timing that differentiates it.

Your take, of course, can differentiate it. Think about whatever your take could be. Maybe you hate email marketing, and you think email sucks. You’re wrong, but maybe you start a podcast about it.

Jonny Nastor: “Your opinion is wrong.”

Jerod Morris: Right. It’s wrong, but it’s differentiated, right? “Email Marketing Is Dead, the new podcast.” I don’t think you’re going to build an audience of smart people, but that would at least differentiate you, right? You’d find people who agree with you. That’s a horrible example. You get the point.

To wrap this up, Jon — and think about any final thoughts you have before we wrap it up — if you want to get some ideas, if you’re struggling with differentiation or uniqueness, talk about it with somebody.

I find that when you talk about it and open it up, get people’s thoughts on it. Does this seem a new idea to them? What ideas do they have that can help you? You’re over here, and maybe you just need to tweak it five to 10 percent to find that niche for yourself. You’re not just like anybody else.

You don’t have to be totally brand new and disorient potential audiences, but just enough of a uniqueness and a differentiation so people say, “Huh, that’s different. Let me give that a shot because this may be different over here,” and then, if the experience that you’re giving people is remarkable, you’ve got a chance at keeping them as a subscriber and as an audience member.

Why You Should Actually Be Glad When Someone People Don’t like Your Show

Jonny Nastor: Or making them hate your show and you, which sounds blunt and bold, but this is differentiation. When we try and just get people to like us, that’s not what a differentiation is. It’s almost easier if you switch your mindset to be like, “I just want to repel the people that aren’t going to be into me and into my show.”

Trust me. I get emails from people that hate the style of my show, and I love it. Thank you so much. I’m glad that you don’t like it, because you are not my audience. Perfect. Great.

You don’t want to be so in the middle that people are like, “Well, I don’t know if I like it.” You want them to either love it or hate it. That’s just what you want, and that’s where your differentiation is. I just want to make that point, because I think it’s easier to repel to people that it is to try and attract them. The ones who are left after you repel, those are the people that love you. Those are your fan base. You can do that through so many ways, like scheduling, style, format, take, or timing. All those can be done in that way.

Some people hate seven-day-a-week podcasts. Perfect. If that’s what you you’re choosing to do, which I strongly advise against it, because it’s a crazy amount of work, but maybe you want to. I need to bring that up. I see so many people trying to get in, and they see these shows that are once-a-day podcasts and they think that that’s their ticket, that if they just do this for three months or six months that they’re going to have this super successful show. It’s not true.

There’s more to it than just doing a whole ton of shows, and it’s a ton and insane amount of work. It really is, and that’s not your ticket. You still have to be different. You still have to stand out. You still have to have the right format, and you still have to engage an audience.

Although it helps sometimes in iTunes to have lots of episodes coming out, to go seven days a week or five a days a week and then pull back in three months or four months because you’re just overwhelmed, it’s something you really, really need to think about. I think it’s easier to step up your schedule than it is to step back your schedule because it already shows that you can’t handle it. It’s not a golden ticket.

A five-day-a-week show or seven-day-a-week show is not a golden ticket to riches in podcasting. It’s just not. It’s an insane amount of work. I do three — now with The Showrunner, four — shows a week, and it’s an insane amount of work. It really is. It’s just how it is.

Jerod Morris: Yeah, I was going to say three shows is about the tipping point for sanity.

Jonny Nastor: Oh geez, it’s crazy. It’s crazy. I mean talking to Demian right? He does four shows, I think, or five shows a week, and it’s a lot. It is. He has this process where he does it. He’s also been at it for couple months now, so we’ll see in six months, but it’s a ton of content, a ton of work.

You don’t want to be putting out mediocre stuff, so you have to go all in every single time. That’s a lot. I’d rather have one awesome show or three awesome shows a week than five that are mediocre, or seven where one is just amazing and then six you’re just you’re exhausted and going through the motions. I wanted to bring that up.

Jerod Morris: Yes. Great point. All right. Let’s get into our listener question next.

The listener questioner for today, Jon, this comes to us from iTunes, and again, as we say, for anybody who leaves us a rating and review on iTunes and includes a question in there, we will always give those questions priority.

Listener Question: How Do Copyright Restrictions Work with Music You Use on Your Podcast?

Jerod Morris: This one comes from terror.303, which is a frightening name, but the question is very nice. This person asks, “Can you talk a little bit about how copyright restrictions work with music on podcasts? I’ve heard you can get away with using a song once if the clip is played under a certain length, like when you use the ‘When I Dip You Dip We Dip’ song, and it seems that there is some debate on this topic.”

There is debate. I don’t believe that there is a hard-and-fast rule. There’s something called fair use, which does allow you to reproduce or use other people’s work if it’s in a limited way, and there’s certain restrictions, like you have to comment on it, that kind of thing. Now, I actually asked a lawyer before I put that episode out there: “Is it okay to use the song?”

The response was, “You’re bordering on the line of fair use, but you’ll probably be okay.” I decided to use it simply because I knew that we would, in the show notes, promote the song, who it’s by, and give all the proper credit. Obviously we made mention of it in there. That’s why we used it. You wouldn’t want to do something like that without permission for your bumper music, for example, and that’s why going someplace where you actually get the right license for the music is smart for anything that you’re going to be doing on a recurring basis. Do you have any other insight to add to that, Jon, because that was basically my thinking when we used that song?

Jonny Nastor: Yeah, that comes from a lawyer, and I’m Canadian. This fair use thing is different. I can’t really speak to it there.

With my show, Hack the Entrepreneur, I literally found music that I wanted to use by a guy who makes it himself. I found him on Facebook after, and I just messaged him. He responded back in two minutes, and he was super excited to know, and he asked if I would link to him somewhere on my website, which I have done. Yeah, he was just super happy. I don’t even have anything in writing, and it just works out.

It was exactly what I wanted for my show. I had to cut it up myself and do an intro and then made an outro from it, but it’s there. I found him actually on FreeMusicArchive.org, I believe it is. There’s a ton of music on there, and most of those songs then lead off to websites of bands. Those people are already giving it away for free, so reach out to them and ask them. You might want to do a contract, though, with them, or do an email, so at least it’s proven that you’ve got approval. But I haven’t done that. I’m a terrible person to get opinions from on this sort of thing.

Jerod Morris: You do everything with handshakes.

Jonny Nastor: I do. I really do.

Jerod Morris: That what I like about you, Jon.

Jonny Nastor: I really do. That’s always my answer: “I trust the guy.” If you trust him or her, then go for it.

Jerod Morris: Be human. Isn’t that your most recent — or I guess that’s two weeks ago — newsletter?

Jonny Nastor: Yeah, be human.

Jerod Morris: Again, thank you to terror.303 for your wonderful question. Again, if you want your question to get priority, leave it inside of a rating or review on iTunes because we check those every week, but keep them coming. You can also Tweet us @ShowrunnerFM, and we will get the questions that way as well.

Why don’t we do some podcast recommendations?

Podcast Recommendations of the Week

Jonny Nastor: Sure. Can I go first?

Jerod Morris: You absolutely can, Jon. You seem very eager.

Jonny Nastor: I am eager! Sam Leslie is the host of the show, and Really Good Reads is the show. Really Good Reads has a cool format, because he doesn’t create the content. He literally goes out and finds blog posts, or in my case, it was my email newsletter that goes out. Something that resonates with him — he reads it, and he gets permission from the author, and he just reads the article into his thing.

You subscribe to his show, and you just get this aggregate of amazing writing from around the web, then you can decide if you’re interested in that person that he just read their stuff, and you can go find out.

Just some really interesting people. He’s done a Copyblogger one. I can’t remember who wrote the one, might have been Demian. I think it was Demian, and then mine, and a bunch of others. He took a really unique way of content creation by aggregating other people’s. He’s a master of audio. He did it in an amazing format, and that’s my recommendation for the week.

Jerod Morris: Yup. Big fan of Sam’s show. That’s a good idea also for a different type of episode. We may do an entire episode of Showrunner on this, on creative episodes to do when you’re feeling the dip, or you don’t have something in mind that week. I think that’s a form of content curation, reading someone else’s work, as long as, of course, you give proper attribution. It’s a great idea.

Brian Gardner did something similar, and I want to recommend one of his episodes from No Sidebar, which is one called, “Are Productivity Articles Making You Unproductive?”

Basically, he read an excerpt from it. It’s very similar to using a block quote inside of a blog post to pull in work from somebody else and then give your ideas on it. Obviously, people who listen to No Sidebar, they are curious on what Brian Gardner has to say about certain things. He really liked this article. I think it was by Paul Jarvis. He gave the author credit, read a little piece of it, and then gave his ideas about it. Sometimes, I think we overcomplicate how creative and new and fresh an episode needs to be, and we think it all has to be brand-new content.

Well, just like a good blog post can take an excerpt from someone else as a springboard to a discussion, you can do the same thing in a podcast. We didn’t plan it this way, but honestly, the theme of these two recommendations is very much that. So use those as examples of different ideas for unique content that you can present to your audience, especially in those weeks when maybe you’re feeling the dip, it’s a little bit tougher, and you just start coming up with anything else.

This is a great way to create really good content that isn’t just mailing it in at all. These are really good episodes. They’re different, and it’s a different way to create podcast content, so thinking outside the box is good.

Jonny Nastor: Agreed.

Jerod Morris: This brings us to the point in the show now, Jon, where we do a call to action, and if you don’t mind, I would like to get a little creative, do some different things with the call-to-action section, for a couple reasons. Number one, I think a lot of times, people tune out before the end of a show, especially if they know the call to action is always the same, and I’d like to give people who listen all the way through a little bit of a reward. Second, I don’t know how effective just requesting iTunes reviews at the end of the show is.

Number one, because people stop listening. Number two, because most people, when they listen, aren’t in a place to leave a review. It’s a good reminder, but what do you think about– real quick, before we get into the actual call to action — the whole request for a review at the end of the show? Do you think it’s necessary? Do you think it really works?

Jonny Nastor: Yes and no, but one call to action at the end, you have to have it. I think it’s essential, whether people are listening or not. We can’t choose that. Try and make it different each time, if you can, but I try and get people on to my email list. That’s what I do in my call to action, typically, because from there, they’ll build a relationship.

People have heard “leave me a rating and review” from every podcaster they listen to all the time. People are figuring out that when they like Jon Nastor now, and they maybe are on my email list and get my newsletter, and then they end up on iTunes, they’re like, “I’m going to leave him a rating and review.” It was just really cool. It’s beneficial.

But I’m finding in the last six months or so that it is getting easier to get people to do it, or else people are just doing it and then emailing me and like, “I just left a review for you,” which is really cool. So just do the one call to action, is my one thing. Always have it, whether people are listening or not, just have that call to action. It’s your job as a showrunner.

Jerod Morris: Yes, do as we say, not as we do, because we’re going to have like three calls to action here at the end since we already suggested that you leave us a rating or review. If you do want to get on our email list, you can go to Showrunner.FM, and the email list is right there, the little form where you can get on there.

But here’s what I wanted to do. This is the real call to action right here. All the rest of that stuff, that wasn’t a real call to action. This allows us to fit within your criteria of just doing one, Jon.

We’ll try and do some different things, and maybe some ways to get to know the audience better and even create a little bit more community. I think the best part about The Showrunner, both the podcast and the course, is this burgeoning community of showrunners that we have who are really committed to creating remarkable experiences for their audiences.

What I would like you to do, listener, for this episode, is share it with a friend, someone who’s currently developing or launching or running a podcast or someone who wants to learn how to run a more remarkable show. Share The Showrunner with them.

Maybe share your favorite episode, or just share the link Showrunner.FM, and tell them this would be a great resource for them. Let us know who you share it with. You can send us a Tweet @ShowrunnerFM, or if you want to do it privately, send us an email — showrunner@rainmaker.FM — because again, we don’t really think of The Showrunner as just a podcast or a course. It’s really this growing community of people who see themselves in this role of responsibility for an audience experience.

The more that we can share ideas and experiences and comradery and lift each other up and motivate each other to be even better, the better every one will be. That’s what we’re growing here with The Showrunner. We’d love to have you help us out with that by sharing this with a friend and then telling us about it.

All right, everybody. Thank you. No, not ‘everybody.’ I’m having a hard time with that. Can I just be honest with you, Jon?

Jonny Nastor: Yup.

Jerod Morris: The whole talking directly to one person — I find myself slipping into ‘everybody’ and more general pronouns. I’m trying to work on that, talking directly to one person, you. Thank ‘you.’ Not ‘everybody.’ I just thought I’d tell you that.

Jonny Nastor: Yeah. That’s cool. Pat Flynn says ‘everybody’ at the beginning of his show. Pat Flynn is one of the most successful podcasters in the world, but the rest of us should say ‘you’ because we’re in one person’s ears.

Jerod Morris: That’s true. We are. We’re in your ears. Thank you, dear listener, for listening. We’ll talk to you next week on another brand new episode of The Showrunner.