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7-Figure Small with Brian Clark
Confessions of a Pink-Haired Marketer
Copyblogger FM: Content Marketing, Copywriting, Freelance Writing, and Social Media Marketing
Get More Clients With Smarter Email Marketing
Hack the Entrepreneur
Members Only
Rainmaker.FM Elsewhere
Site Success: Tips for Building Better WordPress Websites
StudioPress FM
Technology Translated
The Digital Entrepreneur
The Missing Link
The Showrunner
The Writer Files: Writing, Productivity, Creativity, and Neuroscience
Youpreneur with Chris Ducker
Zero to Book
The Showrunner
hosted by Jerod Morris and Jon Nastor

No. 083 How to Rekindle Your Focus on the Other End of the Headphones

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Previous Episode:No. 082 How to Stop Listening to Podcasts and Start Your Own Show More Episodes Next Episode:No. 084 The Value of Meeting Your Audience in Person

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No. 083 How to Rekindle Your Focus on the Other End of the Headphones

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January 11, 2017

No. 083 How to Rekindle Your Focus on the Other End of the Headphones

As you progress as a showrunner, it’s easy to become focused on your end of the headphones. To kick off 2017, we deliver some strategies that will help you maintain your focus where it always needs to be: on the other end of the headphones.

In this episode, Jonny and Jerod discuss:

  • Some recent content and experiences that had a big impact on their mindset entering 2017
  • The importance of the Audience of One
  • Why surveys can be so powerful
  • How testimonials can help your mindset as much as your marketing
  • What to do with the appreciative emails you get from your audience members

Listen, learn, enjoy …

Listen to The Showrunner below ...

No. 083 How to Rekindle Your Focus on the Other End of the HeadphonesJerod Morris and Jon Nastor
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The Show Notes

  • Begin your free, 14-day trial of the Rainmaker Platform and start building your own digital marketing and sales platform today at Rainmaker.FM/Platform
  • No. 073 Empathy Maps: A Podcaster’s Guide
  • Blogging is Back, with Darren Rowse
  • Follow Jerod on Twitter: @jerodmorris
  • Follow Jonny on Twitter: @jonnastor
  • Showrunner FM

The Transcript

No. 083 How to Rekindle Your Focus on the Other End of the Headphones

Voiceover: Rainmaker FM.

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: teach you how to develop, launch, and run a remarkable show. Ready?

Welcome back to The Showrunner, the podcast for people dedicated to creating remarkable audio experiences for their audience. Happy new year. Welcome to 2017. This is episode No. 83 of The Showrunner. I am your host, Jerod Morris, VP of marketing for Rainmaker Digital. I will be joined momentarily, as I always am, by my major-milestone-passing co-host, Jonny Nastor, the host of Hack the Entrepreneur. We’ll get to that major milestone here in a just a second.

First, I do want to let you know that this episode of The Showrunner is brought to you by the Rainmaker Platform. I will tell you more about this complete solution for digital marketing and sales later. But you can check it out and take a free spin for yourself at Rainmaker.FM/Platform.

Jonny’s Major Milestone

Jerod Morris: Jonny, I want to kick off this new year of episodes of The Showrunner by issuing a heartfelt and proud congratulations to you for passing 300 episodes of Hack the Entrepreneur. That is awesome.

Jonny Nastor: Thanks, man. Thanks. I was actually kind of confused at first. I was like, “Major milestone? Is it because I made it to another year, or … ?” Yeah. Seems like so long ago. It was weeks ago I did it, but I took a week off. In episodes, it was only a week ago. But yeah, episode 300, man.

Jerod Morris: That’s amazing. We’ve done 83 episodes, and it feels like we’ve been doing The Showrunner forever and covered a lot and done a lot of episodes. You’ve done three times that, three plus times that. It’s a remarkable thing.

Jonny Nastor: Yeah, and just the fact that I’ve done both of them. That’s 383, and then your shows. That’s a lot of podcasting we do, man.

Jerod Morris: It is, yeah. I wonder how many episodes of The Assembly Call I’ve done, actually. It’s about 35 games a season, and we’re in our sixth season.

Jonny Nastor: Oh, wow. That’s 200.

Jerod Morris: Man, we’ve done a lot of episodes.

Jonny Nastor: You don’t number them because it’s seasonal.

Jerod Morris: Yeah, because it’s seasonal. I’d have to go back and look. It’d be interesting to know what the total number is.

I think this is a good segue way into today’s topic because, as you know, when you do this many episodes of a single show, or just many shows, when you produce this many episodes, it can be easy to forget about the most important element of every episode. The most important element of every single episode that we produce isn’t anything that happens on our side of the headphones.

We ended 2016 talking about ways that we can create a better show — ways that we can be more efficient, ways that we can systematize, which obviously helps make our show better, helps our processes, and hopefully helps us deliver something better to the audience.

But so much of that was focused on our end of the headphones. I think it can be really easy when you really get into a flow and you’ve done a lot episodes, to forget about that most important element, which is the person, the ears on the other end of the headphones.

Some Recent Content and Experiences That Had a Big Impact on Jerod’s and Jonny’s Mindset Entering 2017

Jerod Morris: Jonny, if you agree, I’d like to spend a few minutes, as we kick off 2017 here in this first episode of the new year, talking about that and talking about some ways that we can maintain our focus where it really needs to be, which is on the other end of the headphones. Even when we get far down the road with our shows and it can be easy to focus a little bit more on our end, I think we all understand how important it is to keep that focus where it needs to be.

Jonny Nastor: I do agree with you, Jerod, but I’m wondering, you out there listening, do you agree we should talk about this?

Jerod Morris: Oh what? Are they supposed to give us feedback right now? We’re recording.

Jonny Nastor: Yeah, exactly. That’s all I’m waiting for. We’ll wait.

Jerod Morris: This isn’t a live show.

Jonny Nastor: Oh. All right, no man. I think it’s a great topic. I think it’s interesting because I didn’t really realize how focused we got on the other side of it at the end — the efficiency and getting a team around it. It’s interesting that you pointed that out because it’s like, “Wow, we really did.” I think this is a great way to kick off the new year.

Jerod Morris: It’s a fine line. Again, everything that we talked about at the end of 2016 is focused on creating a better show. That is inherently focused on the audience, obviously, but I think there is a difference between looking at it from our end — “What can we do better? How can I do this and that?” Like, “How can I do all those things better?” You can sometimes lose sight of, “Who is this person who I’m talking to? Why are they listening to my show? What is it about my experience and my knowledge that they are looking for that I can give them?”

There were a few individual situations that occurred for me over the last few weeks that spawned this and spawned my renewed focus on this in the new year.

One was listening to Brian Clark’s episode of Unemployable with Darren Rowse where they really talk about the future of blogging, how blogging isn’t going away, and how there’s such an opportunity now to differentiate as a blogger by getting back to the basics and focusing on who the reader is. How we got into this mode with content marketing of being so focused on the content, and churning out content and all of this, and these tools and techniques, and streamlining it, and doing all of these things, that we forgot about the fact that there’s individual people reading this content on the other end.

Of course, the same goes for podcasting. I’m going to put a link to that episode in the show notes because I think it’s an important episode for you to listen to.

I also spent some time at the end of 2016 doing a survey of Rainmaker Platform users. Again, these aren’t a podcast audience, but we asked them the question, “What is one thing that you would love to see improved about the platform?”

Going through and reviewing each individual person’s answer gave insight into how they use the platform, what they really want to be able to use it for that they can’t use, where they’re at with their business, and why this is important to them. It was so eye opening to me and gave me such a better understanding of who that customer is. We can do the exact same things with our podcast audiences.

I also got this email from someone at The Assembly Call that I want to read. As I’ve told you before, Jonny, almost every season of The Assembly Call, just because it’s such an interesting and challenging schedule, I go through this process where I get tired of it, question it, wonder if I’m doing the right thing, and wonder if this is a smart investment of my time.

I’ve actually done that a little bit more this season because obviously my time has become a little bit more, I don’t want to say ‘valuable,’ but there are more pulls on it — having a new daughter and everything that, that brings into it. I’m starting to get a little bit frustrated. Then I got this email.

Actually, what came in first was a donation, a surprise donation. We hadn’t done a request for donations, so this donation came in out of the blue. I emailed the guy back, David, and thanked him. He said, “Thank you, Jerod, for what you do. You do a remarkable job hosting Podcast on the Brink, and Assembly Call is even better. I live in an isolated part of the world, and listening to Assembly Call is about as close as I get to sitting around talking IU basketball with friends, except you and your guests are much more informed, articulate, and sober.”

He goes on talking about how he’s listened to the other podcasts for many months. Needed to allow it to download overnight on his dial-up connection, but this month he finally got a high-speed connection, and it’s just enough to get the postgame shows live. He says, “Thanks again. Best wishes for the coming year for Assembly Call and you personally.”

Getting that email was the reminder of why we stay up late after the games and do what we do, why we write the postgame emails, why that show has thrived, and why every time we butt up against any type of challenge, it’s like, “Okay, yes, we’re doing it for ourselves in a certain sense, but we’re doing it for the same reason why we started the show six years ago.”

We were looking for a place after the game to hang out, talk about the game, linger on the defeat, linger on a win, or commiserate after a loss. We’re the ones providing that. Getting that email was such a great reminder of that and why we’re doing what we’re doing.

Having had all of these experiences, listening to that episode of Brian’s show, doing that Rainmaker Platform survey, getting this email from David, it’s really given me a renewed sense of momentum beginning 2017 of remembering what I’m doing this for, which is for the person on the other end of the headphones, not as much the person on my end of the headphones.

Obviously, you need a balance there. But it’s so easy to get imbalanced and to think so much about ourselves and why we’re doing this for ourselves, that we forget about the true reason to do this. That’s for that other person. As we move forward here in this episode, we’ll give some strategic steps that you can take to renew this focus yourself. I just wanted to share that and why I think this is a really important topic to get into for the new year. It’s made a big difference on my own mindset entering the new year.

The Delicate Balance Between Being Selfish and Selfless

Jonny Nastor: Yeah. It’s a topic that’s been thrown at me, right now, so I haven’t got to think about it as much, but I do think about it a lot. You said it, where there’s this fine balance. It is about us … podcasting is selfish and selfless at the same time, which is really hard. You have to have this selfishness because there has to be something in it as reward for us.

We can’t just be like … is Mother Teresa a good example? I’m not sure. But you know what I mean? Where we’re just always giving, but at the same time, we always have to be giving in order to get anything selfishly, which I think is where we lose it sometimes. I don’t know.

Obviously, if you’re just selfish all the time, nobody’s going to care about your show because it’s going to be about you. I’ve talked about this a lot on the beginning of Hack the Entrepreneur, 300 episodes ago. It was a lot about me. I tried to weirdly make it about me. That’s what I thought somehow. That’s what my mindset was. As I pulled back, and further and further pulled back from that, is where it becomes about my audience, and then that’s when the audience actually built around it, which is interesting.

It’s a real struggle. I don’t want to say as content creators because I don’t know. I’m a podcaster and a showrunner in that way, but it’s such that fine struggle between that selfishness and selflessness. It’s weird, man. It’s a weird thing to have to do. Especially at the beginning, when we want an audience so badly, that it’s almost that we go about it the wrong way, like I did … I don’t know what I’m trying to get at.

I think maybe what I’m trying get at is that, to me, the selflessness of it came once an audience started to build. It was small, but that’s when I realized, like, “Oh.” Then I could talk to them and pull myself out of it. That’s when it built bigger.

I know to do that now when I start a show, but it’s hard. I’m trying to think about how I can. You out there listening and you haven’t started a show yet, and for me or Jerod to tell you that you have to do it in a completely selfless way, and just try and give and focus on … you know what I mean? One of our core pillars is profitability, which is selfish … in a way. It’s not because it’s going to give back more. It’s what allows me to continually put out shows to help more and more people.

Jerod Morris: Remember, it goes both ways. [Inaudible 00:12:58] for the audience in terms of them getting more out of it than they put in from a time perspective. There is a balance there that we always want to keep in mind. That goes in even with profitability. But you’re right. We have to get something out of it, too, so that we can keep going. And It is, it’s a delicate balance. It’s a very delicate balance.

Jonny Nastor: Right. I guess the one thing I could say that I’ve learned is that — and I know that it’s hard to hear and then think about it — that selflessness is which will give you the selfishness. That’s where the profitability will come from. It’s true. Like Brian and Darren said, you have to focus on that end of it. It sounds easy to say when you can talk to me. I get to professionally podcast for a living. Brian and Darren both get to blog for a living.

When you’re not in that situation, it’s like, “Well, it’s easy for you guys because you don’t have to worry about it. You make money from that stuff.” But the reason why you make money from that stuff is because you’ve done it in that way, not making money for it for a long time.

Jerod Morris: Yeah, yeah. We don’t make a ton of money with The Assembly Call, and we’ve spent a lot of our time not making any money at all. That’s what gives you, in a lot of ways, the privilege to make some money from it. The reward, you have to treat it that way as much as you can from the beginning.

Jonny Nastor: Exactly. There we go. Assembly Call is actually … I guess I was having a hard time with it because the examples were Hack the Entrepreneur and then Brian Clark and Darren Rowse. It was like, well, they’re years in the making at that point, so it’s kind of hard. But yeah, Assembly Call, it’s true. You wanted to quit every season because there was no point, but you kept going.

Jerod Morris: I wanted to quit a few days ago, but that may have been just because they had a couple of bad games. It’s a very emotional show. It’s a roller coaster we go on during the season.

That’s the thing, and I think that’s the point. Your show just reached 300 episodes, and Brian and Darren have obviously been doing it for a long time. But when you get it back to those first principles and the basics for why they’ve succeeded, why you’ve succeeded, it’s because of being able to keep this focus on the other end of the headphones, on the person that you’re serving.

Again, you’re going to ebb and flow a little bit. You spend some more time at certain points thinking about yourself — how you can be better, how you can make this easier for you, how you can save time, how you can make money, and all of these things. But you just have to recognize when you’re doing it too much, and then be able to swing the balance back in the other direction.

That’s what I want to talk about here as we move through the rest of this episode, Jonny. I want to talk about some specific steps people can take. Someone who’s listening to this right now and is like, “Oh, man. Yes. I’ve been thinking so much about how I can make my show work better for me. I need to swing this back in the other direction now and make sure that I’m still focused enough on how it can work for the person who’s listening.” We’re going to give you some specific strategies that you can use to do this.

Real quick, once again, The Showrunner is brought to you by the Rainmaker Platform, the complete solution for digital marketing and sales. Grow your audience and your email list faster. Build profitable marketing automation, killer landing pages and membership programs, sell online courses, digital products, and much more. The Rainmaker Platform — which I use, which Jonny uses — helps you focus on your business and stop worrying about the technology that you need to succeed. Start building your own marketing and sales platform today. Begin your free 14-day trial at Rainmaker.FM/Platform.

The Importance of the Audience of One

Jerod Morris: Jonny, let’s get to some concrete takeaways, things that people can do if they really want to get that focus back where it needs to be. Let’s start from, really, one of the most fundamental concepts of The Showrunner that we’ve been talking about. I don’t know, what episode was it? Episode 4 or 5, or something? We’ll put the link in the show notes: the audience of one.

Look, we talk about how, “Okay, maybe this is easier to do once we’ve had our show for a little bit longer.” But if you are listening to this right now and you haven’t even started a show, this is something that you can do. This is something that you should do.

Your audience of one may, early on, be based on yourself. When you sit down to write this, it may sound a lot like yourself. That’s okay. You probably should be your audience of one when your show first starts. You’ve probably identified some gap in the podcast market that you want filled. You’ve decided, “Wait a minute, there’s not a show out there like this. Let me do it.” That is a great way to begin a show, but you really want to get down and figure out who is that person on the other end of the headphones. Thinking about it in terms of your audience of one is a great, great way to do that.

Jonny, what guidance do you have — and again, obviously we’ll link to the old episode — for folks about making that a worthwhile exercise, going through and defining their audience of one?

Jonny Nastor: I’m struggling with this again now because I don’t want to make it technical or formulaic. Then we lose this essence that we’re trying to get to. If you haven’t listened to the audience of one episode yet, or been in the course and learned about it, really the whole reason you’re doing this is to have that one person who is that perfect person that you can help in some way, or entertain or inspire in whatever way you are trying to do with your show. They’re sitting on the other side of your desk every single time you talk into a microphone. That’s the person you’re talking to.

It’s absolutely necessary, yes, and you need to know this. And Jerod’s right that you should probably be that person at first, or at least a previous version of you. Meaning that, when I started Hack the Entrepreneur, my audience was me two years prior. That was absolutely me. I knew my fears. I knew my desires. I knew everything, and then I knew two years later how I had gotten there. My job was to bring the listener to where I was.

Jerod Morris: Yeah.

Jonny Nastor: Really listen to the episode and do the work. After you do the work, and the technical side or that sort of structured side is done, think about it as just that person. That’s it. You just want to have that image of that person on the other side that you are talking to. I can picture you right now sitting across my desk from me, and that’s who I’m talking to.

When I write a newsletter email to you on Wednesday, I’m writing to you. Yes, it goes out to thousands of people, but it’s still just to you. To me, not only does it connect better with you, but it actually, again selfishly, made it, especially at the beginning for me, a lot easier to create content. I wasn’t trying to speak to thousands of people, so I didn’t get stuck, “What do I say in this email to 3,000 people?” It was like, “No, I just have to talk to her on the other side of my desk.”

It makes it easier, but at the same time, it makes this connection, which allows it to go deeper. So listen to the episode, do the work for the audience of one, but then step back and stop thinking of it in technical terms. Now you just have that image of that person. That person will evolve, but for now, that’s who you speak to.

Jerod Morris: Yeah. It’s such a great way to either begin or maintain your focus on that one person that you’re talking to. It’s essential. Let’s say that you’re maybe a little bit further along. Look, you should do your audience of one. This is something you can do and redo many, many times as you go through your show. Once you have an audience, you have some additional opportunities that you can go with.

Why Surveys Can Be So Powerful

Jerod Morris: One of those would be doing a survey. I’m not just talking a demographic survey that you would do for advertising, for instance, where it’s name, city, income, and all of that. I’m talking about a survey that maybe just has one or two questions. Just ask people an open-ended question like, “What answer are you looking to get from listening to this podcast?” Or, “What is one topic we could cover that you think would have the biggest impact on you?”

Something that’s relevant to your show, that’s relevant to your audience, that gives your audience members a chance to expound, a chance to explore the studio space a little bit, and give you a meaningful answer. I’m telling you, going through and reading those is going to give you so much insight into your audience. I can almost guarantee you that people will tell you things that you hadn’t thought about, that you hadn’t considered, that you had forgotten.

It just uncovers this entire world of opportunities for content, number one, but more than that, opportunities for understanding. You will get both explicit and implicit statements and hints about why people are listening to your show, what they’re looking to accomplish, what next step they’re looking to take in their life or business that you can help them take.

It’s going to make that content creation process better, simpler, and smarter for you, but it also is going to motivate you. I feel like we get motivated as showrunners by knowing that the content we’re creating is really helping people take steps. That’s what should motivate us.

Doing a survey really enables you to zero in on what those things are and is just going to help you and help your audience immensely. I think that is another great step that you can take. If you already have an audience — even if it’s an audience of 10, or 100, or 1,000, or 10,000, however big your audience is — a survey can really be something helpful if you ask the right question and leave it open ended. Let them explain. Let them explore. I think it’ll really help you out.

Jonny Nastor: Can I just interject here?

Jerod Morris: Yes.

Jonny Nastor: You’re right, the audience of 10, the audience of 100, the audience of 1,000 — we’ve already told you that you just need an audience of one. Something we talk about a lot in software is doing things that don’t scale. I think that this is, to me, a really good way to connect, is the fact that you should almost get onto Skype or get onto the phone with as many people that are listeners of yours, or could potentially be listeners of yours, as possible.

Yes, this takes works. Yes, this takes effort. Doing something electronic is easier, but sometimes it takes really getting on the phone with people.

I’ve probably done this 100 times with my show, where I literally have a separate automated calendar set up. I have dates in there that people can take 15 minutes, and we just talk. It’s not even about what you like about me or my show. I just want to know what you’re doing and what you’re trying to accomplish. That helps me because I know how to help people once I know what their struggle is.

If you’re out there listening, which you could be, and thinking that, “Well, I don’t even have any audience yet,” or, “I don’t want to email people and have nobody respond.” I know we’re kind of running out of time, but I talked to an old listener of mine just before the holidays. He was struggling with trying to find a mastermind group.

He was like, “Do you know anybody?” I set him up a year ago with people in my inbox that had emailed me that question. There’s some people in my inbox right now, but they’re not right for him because he’s literally quit his job now and runs a full-time Amazon business. He wants to go further with it.

I was like, “Why don’t you do this?” — because he’s like, “I don’t have an audience. I don’t have anybody like that. I don’t have an email list” — I was like, “Why don’t you create a survey,” which Jerod just said. “Typeform.com,” I said. “It’s completely free. Looks great. Create what’s you, what is in your business. Do you want to meet once a week? Everything you’d want from a perfect person, basically your audience of one for a mastermind group.” I said, “And go buy like $10 worth of Facebook Ads directed at Shopify and Amazon sellers.”

He got off the phone with me. An hour later, he’s like, “How does this look?” He showed me the Typeform. Three hours later, he’s like, “Dude, 12 people have already joined it, and I’m starting to talk to them tomorrow.” Now he’s got five people and a brilliant mastermind group set up.

Jerod Morris: That’s fantastic.

Jonny Nastor: He didn’t have the audience, and he did the work. He did the things that don’t scale. If you’re looking to enter an audience, this is what this is for. You’re looking to enter a market and you haven’t started your show yet, so you’re like, “Well, I don’t have people to talk to.” Rather than shooting in the dark, set up this Typeform or set up calls with people.

There are Facebook groups for free on every topic possible. Enter those, and people want to connect with other people in those markets. They really do. Everyone’s dying to connect with other people with like-minded interests. They will get on a Skype call with you. They will answer surveys for you. Use that information, and create a show for those people.

Jerod Morris: Yeah. I love that. You’re not just doing things that don’t scale to do things that don’t scale endlessly. You’re doing things that don’t scale so that you can figure out the things that will, and then do that to impact even more people.

Jonny Nastor: Exactly.

Jerod Morris: There is a big-picture goal there. I love that. Love that idea, Jonny.

How Testimonials Can Help Your Mindset As Much As Your Marketing

Jerod Morris: We talked about figuring out your audience of one. We’ve talked about doing a survey. The final two steps are ask for testimonials. Not only can testimonials be used, obviously, on sales pages, on your website, in a lot of different places. You can read them on your podcast. There’s a lot of different things you can do with testimonials, but don’t underestimate the importance of you just reading what people say. Look for what people point out in the testimonial.

Most people aren’t just going to say, “Hey, this show is good.” They’re going to say, “This show is good because … ,” “I like this show because … ,” “You should listen to this show because … ” Then see what they say. See if that matches, what they say, if that matches with what you think the big benefits are that people get out of the show.

You may find that people like your show for different reasons than you think that they do. That can give you more insight, and maybe that’s something that you want to double down on. Maybe it’s something that you didn’t realize. Maybe no one is talking about things that you think should be important, and you need to communicate those better. So asking for testimonials is another really good way.

What to Do with the Appreciative Emails You Get From Your Audience Members

Jerod Morris: Then, finally, as you’ve been doing this for a while, and if you’re creating an authentic connection, if you’re helping people, and especially if you have an email list and you’re sending out emails, you will start getting responses — responses to emails that you send or just random emails that people send to you. We get these on The Showrunner all the time.

Going back and rereading these old responses are great for two reasons. Number one, they may include some kind of question or some kind of statement about how you really helped them achieve something. Take note of that. Those are real audience members telling you what your show meant in a specific way. Surely that will apply to others. Understand what those things are.

Then the second reason is reread them just to remind yourself that people appreciate what you’re doing and that you’re having an impact. Again, it can be easy to get bogged down in all the stuff on our side of the headphones — our busy schedules, our frustration with the systematizing, whatever it is. It can be easy to get frustrated, and every now and then, we need that reminder of, “Oh, yeah. There is a real person, there are real people on the other end of these headphones, on the other end of this microphone, that are really getting something out of this show.”

That can help motivate you and keep you enthusiastic more than anything else. I’ve certainly found that to be, and I think you will too. That’s a great way to begin a new year of showrunning, of podcasting, by rekindling that enthusiasm. It’ll take you to great places, and it’ll take your audience to great places.

Jonny Nastor: I love it. We talked about sometime on this show, I can’t remember who, but they kept … or it was on a different show. But they actually keep a folder in their Gmail account. Anytime an email comes in, they put it in there after reading it, from an audience member. Then, especially when you need that motivation and you’re just like, “Oh, oh. Am I doing this to nobody?” You go in there and it’s like, “Wow, there’s 24 emails in here from audience members,” that you forget about. It’s like, “Oh, yeah. This is why.”

Jerod Morris: I’m going to start doing that. Plus, I was going back to find this email from David because I wanted to use it in this podcast episode, and it took me longer than it should’ve. I was like, “I should have an easy place to go back and access these.”

Jonny Nastor: Folder.

Jerod Morris: Yeah. I’m going to start doing that.

Jonny Nastor: Awesome.

How to Take Your Showrunning to the Next Level

Jerod Morris: By the way, we close with go to Showrunner.FM. Join our weekly email newsletter. We have some fun stuff planned for this new year. Plus, hey, anytime you reply to one of those emails, you get a reply right back from us. We always appreciate those emails. Go to Showrunner.FM, enter your email address, join The Showrunner. Declare yourself a showrunner — which, by the way, is now in the dictionary, which is awesome.

Jonny Nastor: That is awesome.

Jerod Morris: We should end with that. Showrunner is now officially in the dictionary. The definition is still too focused on television, Jonny, so we have work to do. But it’s the first step.

Jonny Nastor: “The showrunner: A person who has creative control over a broadcast series, as on podcasting, and who manages its day-to-day operations.” It actually says ‘television,’ but it’s official.

Jerod Morris: Yeah. Just take out television.

Jonny Nastor: Just take out television in general from your life. It would be so much better.

Jerod Morris: I’m okay with that. We’re about to get rid of cable. I’m very excited about it.

Jonny Nastor: Wow, that’s awesome.

Jerod Morris: Yeah, it is. We’ll talk about that.

Jonny Nastor: This has been fun, man. 2017, we’re here.

Jerod Morris: Let’s do it. Another great year of episodes. Another great year of shows getting better and impacting an audience. I’m excited.

Jonny Nastor: It feels good to be back, man.

Jerod Morris: Yes it does. It feels good to be talking with you. We’ll talk with you next week on another brand-new episode of The Showrunner.

Jonny Nastor: Take care.

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