No. 082 How to Stop Listening to Podcasts and Start Your Own Show

The Transcript

No. 082 How to Stop Listening to Podcasts and Start Your Own Show

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. This is episode No. 82. I am your host, Jerod Morris, VP of marketing for Rainmaker Digital, and I will be joined momentarily, as I always am, by my jingle-belling co-host, Jonny Nastor, the host of Hack the Entrepreneur.

This episode of The Showrunner is brought to you by Audible. More on them later, but if you love audio books or have always wanted to give them a try, you can check out over 180,000 titles right now at AudibleTrial.com/Rainmaker.

Well, Jonny, it is truly the most wonderful time of the year. It is the final week of 2016. We are now into the final episode of our three-part series to end 2016. I have a very important question for you. What is your favorite Christmas song?

Jonny Nastor: That’s a good question. “Little Drummer Boy”?

Jerod Morris: Oh. That’s a good one. “Little Drummer Boy” is a good one, an underrated good song.

Jonny Nastor: That’s a tough question. It changes, but that’s probably a default.

Jerod Morris: It does. It changes kind of depending on the environment.

Jonny Nastor: Exactly.

Jerod Morris: If I’m in the house by myself and I just want to pretend I’m a singer, I like belting out “Silent Night.” But it’s kind of a slow song. I wouldn’t really want to sing that in front of anybody else, but I kind of get into when I’m by myself. “It’s The Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” that’s also a great one.

I’m very interested in what your, and by ‘your’ I’m talking to the listener now, not Jonny … I’m interested in what your favorite Christmas song is? Tweet us, @JerodMorris, @JonNastor. Let us know what your favorite Christmas song is. If you send us a video of yourself singing that Christmas song, that’d be awesome. We might play the audio on a 2017 episode of The Showrunner.

Jonny Nastor: Wow.

Jerod Morris: That’d be great, right? We’re at the end of our three part series. Two weeks ago, we talked about ways that showrunners can systematize their shows better, maybe some things you can put in place right now with the time that you have left in 2016 to be ready for 2017 from a system perspective.

Last week, we talked about professional podcasting tips for pristine production, and hosting hacks. This was Jonny’s episode where he really put his enunciation on display. It was impeccable, I will say, and he gave you the four Ds of pristine production. Make sure that you check that.

In both of those episodes, we issue calls to our audience — to you, the dear listener — to Tweet us what you wanted us to talk about in this final episode of 2016. We got a couple of great responses, so we are basically going to split this episode in half. We’re going to address one of these Tweets in one half, one of the Tweets in the other half. It’ll be fun.

Bonus: Showrunning Tips on How to Make It Through the Winter

Jerod Morris: Jonny, I also, kind of going along with the episode from last week, professional podcasting tips for pristine production, I want to peel back the curtain here real quick and let folks know if my voice at all sounds different, it’s because I have a bit of a cold.

What’s the worst thing that can happen, Jonny, as a podcaster when you have a cold. When we’re talking about production value for the audience, what’s the worst thing that you can do when you have a cold that could really impact the experience that your audience has?

Jonny Nastor: This is just going right off the cuff, but the worst thing you could do is not podcast, give into it.

Jerod Morris: Okay, yes. That would definitely be the worst thing, but the second worst thing would be to just be so flippant with your sniffles and with your coughs and not make good use of the mute button. That can really impact I think the listening experience that folks have. It’s not always easy, but that’s where, especially if you’re using something like Skype, if you’re not feeling well, if you know that you have to cough, use that mute button when the other person’s talking and get your sniffles out there. Get your coughs out there. It’s really important to be mindful of them.

I was thinking about that because I did a webinar earlier today, and that was the first thing I checked when I went to go to webinar, “Where’s the mute button?” so I can make sure, when I have to cough, when I have to sniffle … let me try and do this privately as much as I can. It’s just less of a distraction.

Now, if a sniffle comes in, if a cough comes in, it’s not like your audience is just going to leave and hate you forever. But it’s just one of those things when you’re thinking ahead, delivering the best value to your audience. Those little things can go a long way. Just make sure you know where the mute button is because sometimes you need it.

Jonny Nastor: And because we’re totally heading into that season, and because I’m like you, Jerod, like have to be consistently podcasting throughout anyways — I haven’t been hit by a cold, but I know I will — I always have a good stockpile of really strong cough candies with lots of menthol in them. It kind of cleans out.

Then I’ve talked about it on this show numerous times, and I’ll say it again, is the neti pot and the nasal irrigation. It cleans you out, and if you do it in the morning, it’ll help me throughout the day to do the shows. I’ll still sound a bit plugged up, but not nearly as terrible as it would normally. It allows me to just keep going, but really strong menthol lozenges or cough candies help a lot to keep the voice from getting sore as you’re trying to talk through it.

Jerod Morris: Yeah. So bonus showrunning tips of how to make it through the winter. All right. You ready to hop into the main topic and address some of these Twitter comments?

Jonny Nastor: I wish I had jingle bells to ring right now, but yes, I am ready.

Jerod Morris: Jingle bells. Get us some bells, Toby, if you have them.

Marketing Tips for Podcasters Heading into Their Third Year of Showrunning

Jerod Morris: All right. Let’s address the first question first, which makes sense. This comes to us from @TheOneWith podcast. The quote is, “Third episode on marketing. Loving the series and pondering showrunning. Maybe tips for shows past year three.” There are really two suggestions there, doing a third episode on marketing and then tips for shows past year three.

I’m going to actually, in my answer to this, Jonny, I’m going to combine the two and give a tip on marketing that is also a tip for shows past year three. That is, as you enter or you’re done with your third year, you’re looking to enter your fourth year, I think one of the biggest things that can happen is you start to get a little bit stale, and things stay the same. Maybe you go through the motions a little bit.

Now, if you already have a lot of great enthusiasm and you’re ready to roll, maybe this tip won’t work for you, but I know with Assembly Call, when we got past year three, as I try and think back now, I think after season three was probably the off season when I thought the most about quitting that show and not doing it anymore.

We had seen some success, but now it’s like, “Hey, this has been three years. Where’s this thing going?” I think what really helped us was introducing video to our postgame show and then starting to really get into email and building an audience with email.

The reason why that worked is, number one, it was new. We hadn’t done it. It was this fresh, new thing that livened things up for all of us. It was a new challenge, a new way to interact with the audience. So it really freshened things up from that perspective, but because it was different, it really helped us market our show in a new way, which helped the audience grow.

Now, instead of just having people subscribe to us on YouTube or just subscribe to the podcast, it was like, “Hey, we’re going to start doing these really in-depth email analysis. No one else who’s out here talking about this content really does anything with email. So subscribe to us via email, and the day after games, you’re going to get this really in-depth analysis right to your inbox.” Our audience and subscriptions just went through the roof, as did our enthusiasm for the show.

That’s what I would say to combine those. Look, that’s just a general term for marketing when you talk about positioning yourself and what is your unique show positioning. Really understand what the other shows out there are doing and do something different. Position yourself differently. Not only will that help you market the show, but it can also help you keep things from getting stale, add a new challenge, and give you new enthusiasm.

Jonny, what would you say for either marketing, or tips for shows past year three, or possibly fusing them together?

Jonny Nastor: Yeah. Let’s fuse them together. Even year two, year three, at that point, you have a solid foundation of individual episodes, SEO for everything, and content for your listener. After that, the biggest thing that changed the game for Hack the Entrepreneur was when I started harnessing, I guess, or utilizing other people’s audiences. I started going on other podcasts a lot, and I started writing for other people’s websites. Those two things exponentially grew my audience.

I had honed into who my audience was and had created a lot of good content for them. It was still organically growing through iTunes and stuff, but because I knew my audience so well, I knew where other people had the same or similar audiences. Once I started reaching out to those people, I could bring people back in larger quantities and just with a better velocity of people and growth that happened with them.

To me, I don’t want people focusing on that stuff in year one. You really have to sort of build the foundations and the main pillars of your content that your show’s going to be based off, that your site’s going to be based off. Once you do that, I think you really should start reaching out to other pools of audience.

Jerod Morris: Yeah. I love that, and I love the idea of not trying to go too fast with it. When you’re first starting out, you really just want to focus on creating good audio and not over-complicating things. If we tried to do a postgame show with video too, it just would have been way too much. We were only ready to actually do video, add that in there, and be able to do it naturally once we had a couple of years of doing the show via audio. Doing the video before would have just over complicated it.

I think really getting good at what you’re doing, but when you get to that year-three point — when you get at the end of year two, the end of year three — I think you’re ready for some new challenges.

You’ve got to keep growing to keep attracting new audience members and I think to keep your existing audience, to keep their enthusiasm up, too. You never want to take them for granted and just assume they’ll stay with you forever if you’re not growing, moving forward, and doing new things as well. I think this question is great. It’s the right timing for it, which is good.

Anything else? Any other marketing tips, general marketing tips, that we could give as we end 2016?

Finding a Way to Be Unique in Other Channels

Jonny Nastor: I don’t know. I think the idea of reaching out, finding more people, and then yours with going deeper with people through email, to me, if you could just merge those two things … because, again, when you’re starting out and you want to be just focused on getting your audio good, I think even at year two or three you really still only want to focus on one or two channels really well for outreach. Then you still have to do something with them.

You can’t just keep producing audio content. You do have to do, like Jerod did, and now find a way to be unique within the other channels, which is email or something to go deeper with your audience and really draw them deeper into your brand, into you.

I would almost want you just to focus on those two, outreach, and then once you have them, doing more with them — rather than just spraying, doing six different things for outreach, and then muddling five different things once you have them.

Between those two, I know it’s been proven that the outreach that I did worked for me. It’s worked for hundreds of others of people, and email marketing, especially the way Jerod explained it, it works. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel in these things. You have to bring it into your niche, put your spin on it, but it works.

There’s almost no need to tell you to do other things. I know for a fact that if we get back here and you’re entering year four at this time next year, and you’ve done the outreach, and then you’ve nailed email marketing, you will be exponentially further than you are today. Your audience will be not only better, they’ll be more responsive, and they’ll have a better, deeper relationship to you and your brand.

Jerod Morris: Absolutely. The other Tweet that we got is from someone who’s on the other end of the spectrum, who’s just getting started and needs a little kick to get going. We’re going to give you that kick here in just a minute.

But first, I do want to let you know, as I mentioned earlier, this episode of The Showrunner is brought to you by Audible, offering over 180,000 audio book titles to choose from. Audible seamlessly delivers the worlds of both fiction and non-fiction to your iPhone, Android, Kindle, or computer.

For Showrunner listeners, Audible is offering a free audible book download with a free 30-day trial to give you the opportunity to check them out. To get started right now, visit AudibleTrial.com/Rainmaker. And if you want a recommendation … Jonny, give me a key word. I’m going to type the keyword into Audible search, and we’re going to tell people what the first audio book is that comes up. What do you got?

Jonny Nastor: Christmas.

Jerod Morris: Christmas.

Jonny Nastor: I already did this.

Jerod Morris: Oh you did?

Jonny Nastor: I found a really good one.

Jerod Morris: It is A Christmas Carole, a signature performance by Tim Curry. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, of course. How the Grinch Stole Christmas is right there.

Jonny Nastor: See, I went down a little bit on the page, and I found something really, really awesome that I think everybody listening should use their Audible trial to get, Pretty Paper by Willie Nelson. There are two narrators, but Willie Nelson was the author. It’s, “Willie Nelson, country music’s quintessential musician, displays all the wit and warmth of his homespun style of storytelling in an inspiring holiday novel based on his classic Christmas song, Pretty Paper.”

Jerod Morris: Wow. I want to listen to that right now.

Jonny Nastor: I know. So do I.

Jerod Morris: There you go.

Jonny Nastor: So Pretty Paper by Willie Nelson. You can get that at AudibleTrial.com/Rainmaker for free.

Jerod Morris: Yeah. Again, AudibleTrial.com/Rainmaker. There you go, Pretty Paper. All right.

The Name We Give to People Who Spend More Time Learning to Podcast, but Not Recording Their Own Shows

Jerod Morris: So the Tweet that we got, Jonny, is from @RampCreative. It says, “Is there a name for people who spend more time learning and not recording, still listening and not doing. Confused. Need to kick myself.” Is there a name for people who spend more time learning and not recording? Yeah. Bill, Sue, Jane, John, Anthony … I mean, most people, just start naming names. Most people spend more time learning, not recording, more time listening, and not doing.

Ramp Creative, I want to commend you for the fact that you basically, just by considering starting your show, you’ve said to yourself that you are different from the majority of people, that you believe that you can lead an important conversation. The most important part to ever actually getting started with the show is having that belief that, “Hey. I can do this,” that, “Hey. I should be doing this.” That’s kind of what happens, right?

Maybe we’ve listened to podcasts, and we have that little itch where it’s like, “Hey. There’s this topic that we really like. I wonder if I could do this.” It’s just this fanciful thought. We don’t put much into it, but then it starts to grow a little bit more serious and a little bit more serious. Finally, we’re to the point where we’re actually lamenting the fact that we haven’t started the show.

Keep in mind, a lot of people, they’ve had this thought that they should start, and it goes in their brain and out their brain the same day. They never think about it again, and it never goes anywhere. But you are one of the select few, the precious few, the amazing few for whom that little worm in your head stayed there. It’s burrowed itself in, and it will not leave — and that is awesome.

Now you’re at this point where you’re actually saying, “I just need to kick myself and get going.” How do you kick yourself and get going? Well, I would say the first thing that you can do is completely remove all pressure from yourself and just sit down and record something. Not promising that it’s going to be released. You maybe haven’t even started your site yet, and maybe you don’t even buy a microphone yet. You just record something, just to see how it feels, to hear how it sounds afterwards.

But what you want is to have that feeling afterwards of accomplishment, and momentum, and that it feels good. That lets you know that you’re kind of on the right track.

The next thing, if you really want to kick yourself, is tell someone that you’re going to do it. Maybe don’t publish it on Facebook in front of everybody, but find some kind of an accountability partner, maybe your significant other, maybe a friend of a family member. Tell them, “Hey. I’ve been thinking about doing this podcast. I’m going to have an episode up. I’m going to have an episode done by the first of February. Will you listen to it? If I haven’t sent it to you, will you nag me about it because I really want to do this.”

That can also be another way to hold yourself accountable to your goals. Clearly, this is a goal for you. That is one other way that you can do this, but I want to commend you on just having the thought and taking it seriously. Too many people have the thought, but dismiss it. I appreciate that you have embraced it, and we want to do whatever we can to help you get started. It’s really an amazing thing once you do get started.

Jonny, how would you advise Ramp Creative on kicking herself and getting going, and stop listening, and start doing?

Why You Need to Stop Thinking and Planning So Far Ahead of Yourself

Jonny Nastor: I am going to send you back to just one more episode of our show, just one more thing to listen to over the holidays. On an episode, that I’ll find, we went through something called just-in-time learning. Just-in-time learning is, to me, how to overcome this. I 100 percent fully agree and endorse everything Jerod just said, that you are the right person for it now. You’ve made that decision.

But just-in-time learning allows you to stop trying to learn anything else that you don’t need to know literally right now to take the next step. I’m going to link to that in the show notes for you. Plus, I’m going to link to one small PDF that we made.

It’s part of the Showrunner course, but we’ll post it. It’s the 15-step launch plan. Literally, it’s just going to be step one. It’s get a website up and running with at least one email signup box to start building your list. What you have to do is, if you don’t know how to get a website up or if you don’t know how to put an email signup box, then you learn that step. That’s it.

Don’t look at step two. Don’t look at step three. Don’t look at step four at this point. Just look at that and focus on that. Then go to step two and go to step three.

What it does is, rather than getting bogged down because you think you need to learn maybe how to market your show at year three, it’s really just, “What do I have to do the two months leading up to a launch?” Then, if it’s, “How do I choose my format?” … well, then you can go to there. That’s fine. What it does is it allows you to stop worrying about anything except for the one thing that is right in front of you right now. When you have a clear plan, you just go one, to the next, to the next depending on how much free time you have.

If you can spend half an hour a day or three hours a week, whatever it happens to be, then at least you know that nothing else matters. Don’t listen to any more shows. Don’t read any more posts, except for the thing that you have to know right now. Just-in-time learning and then taking action on that learning so that you can get to the next step. If you don’t know how to do the next step, learn it then. Don’t worry about the next thing after that until you get there.

To me, that’s by far the easiest because it stops the overwhelm. Right now you’ve got probably way more knowledge than you need, but there’s always one more thing to learn. There’s always another blog post, another episode out. There’s always, always, always more. If you focus on what I need right at this very moment to take the next step, that’s how you’ll get to where you want to go.

Changing Your Mindset: Stop Kicking, Start Hugging … and Make 2017 Your Best Year Ever

Jerod Morris: Yup. I agree completely. Piggybacking on that is, I would think about just reframing how you’re looking at this. That last line in your Tweet, “Need to kick myself,” that’s such a negative thing. It presupposes that you’re wrong for not having started yet. Well, you may not be wrong for not having started yet. You may have valid reasons for not having started yet. So instead of kicking yourself, maybe think of it as hugging yourself, or helping yourself, or taking yourself by the hand and walking yourself to the next step.

What I’m trying to get at here is having the self-awareness to understand what the true reason is why you haven’t started. Are you afraid to get behind a microphone, hit record, and have to speak? If that’s the case, then maybe for your first episode you write out a script to help yourself, to hug yourself. Don’t kick yourself. Help yourself.

Maybe you’re afraid that no one’s going to listen to your first episode. So you say, “Okay. I’m not going to publish my first episode. I’m just going to produce it, and I’m not going to publish it. So it doesn’t matter if anybody listens to it. I’m not going to let that bother me.”

There may be many, many other reasons. Maybe you’re afraid or maybe whatever. There could be tons and tons of reasons why you haven’t started, but I would really try to figure out, understand yourself, understand what the biggest reason is, the biggest hurdle. And instead of just getting mad at yourself or thinking that it’s a ridiculous thought, that, that hasn’t helped you get started, embrace that.

Maybe you do this just-in-time learning that Jonny talked about. You look up one more thing, or you find one more thing that helps you get over that hurdle. And that’s what helps you take the next step.

That can really help you reduce that overwhelm and take that next step. That’s all that showrunning is. It’s putting one foot after another, one episode after another. You’re not going to go from zero episodes to 100 episodes in one recording. There’s so much growth and there’s so many struggles that go along with that. You just want to take the next step.

So really figure out what it is specifically that’s preventing you from taking it, either externally of internally. Just overcome that one thing. Then see how the path is. Maybe it’s a much smoother path to get going.

Jonny Nastor: Yeah. So it’s mindset. What’s that classic article about the gap? Oh, what’s his name? With radio, how you’re creating it, and what you’re creating you don’t think is good enough.

Jerod Morris: Oh, Ira Glass.

Jonny Nastor: Yeah, yeah. There’s this video of him saying it, and it’s kind of the idea. Anybody who I think who wants to step up and be a showrunner listens to a lot of podcasts, is a fan, is into them. We have built up and have gained a certain level of taste within it, right? When we start creating, we’re never creating what can reach up to our taste level, because we’ve been consuming it for so long. We have this higher level.

Musicians are the same way. The reason why you start creating music is because you’re so into it. You’ve been into it your whole life, but when you start, you can’t create to your own level of taste. But as you keep working and working and working through it, you will slowly … it’s not just you that feels that way, I guess is the main point of it.

Like Jerod was saying, it’s not just you that feels this way. It’s all of us. We all feel this way when we start and even as we’re continuing on. I’m approaching episode 300, and I still don’t think I’ve totally closed that gap on myself — but I’ve gotten a lot better. I don’t know. Somehow I wanted to fit that in there.

Jerod Morris: Yeah. But the only way you do that is one step at a time, one show at a time. There’s no way to just fast forward through that. There’s no amount of reading blog posts … those will help you have an understanding of the technical elements of it, but you’ve just got to do it. There’s just no replacement for getting out and doing it, and that means that first episode.

Jonny Nastor: It’s not easy. It’s hard.

Jerod Morris: No. It is.

Jonny Nastor: It’s hard. It really is. Two and a half years ago when I started, I was terrified every time I had to sit down and talk into a microphone. I did it because I wanted to see where I could take it. I’m shocked where it went. So it’s worth doing I guess is the point. To try and close that gap is so worth it once you get to the other side.

With Ramp Creative, you’re on the precipice. You’re ready to start. You are. You just have to put in the work, the time. Sort of put your ego and humility onto the table now, and start to work to close that gap.

Jerod Morris: Absolutely.

Jonny Nastor: Trust me, it’s totally, totally, absolutely worth it.

Jerod Morris: Yeah. All right. There we go. There’s advice for if you’ve gotten going, you’re three years in, and maybe you’re looking for a way to keep things fresh or a new way to market your show. That person, that person’s who’s three years in, they were in that same place that Ramp Creative is right now at one point.

They had an idea. They had a drive to do it. Maybe they weren’t quite sure why they couldn’t stop learning and listening instead of doing and recording, and they needed a little ‘kick’ or maybe to ‘hug’ themselves and get going. There’s a little advice for both of you, how to get started and how to keep going.

No matter what position you are in entering 2017, when you’re listening to this episode, if you listen to it the day it comes out, you’ve still got a few days left before 2017 to figure out what that next step will be once the new year gets here. Use these next couple of days, figure that out, and hit the new year … maybe you don’t hit it running. Just hit the new year stepping. Take that one first step, and get going in 2017. Make it your best year ever. Why not?

Jonny Nastor: I love it. This has been good, man.

Jerod Morris: This has been good. It was fun.

Jonny Nastor: 2016 was fun.

Jerod Morris: Another fun year of The Showrunner.

Jonny Nastor: Yeah, totally.

Jerod Morris: Dude, we’re going to hit episode 100 next year.

Jonny Nastor: That’s cool.

Jerod Morris: That is awesome.

Jonny Nastor: That’s cool, yeah.

Jerod Morris: We’ll have to do something special.

Jonny Nastor: I like it.

How to Take Your Showrunning to the Next Level

Jerod Morris: Yeah. All right. Go to Showrunner.FM. Get on the email list so that when we have huge announcements in 2017, which we will, you will get them, in addition to our weekly email newsletter. It’s really easy. Showrunner.FM. There’s a little form right there. Enter your email address. You’ll be on it.

And have a happy holiday season. I guess this episode will come out after Christmas, right before New Year’s, so have a fun, safe New Year’s Eve celebration. I’ll be doing an episode of The Assembly Call because the Hoosiers play on New Year’s Eve.

Jonny Nastor: I will be on holidays.

Jerod Morris: Very nice.

Jonny Nastor: Enjoying it.

Jerod Morris: Absolutely. We will talk to you all again in 2017.

Jonny Nastor: Take care.

Bonus Footage: Attack of the Sniffles

Jonny Nastor: That was fun.

Jerod Morris: All right, that was fun.

Jonny Nastor: We did it.

Jerod Morris: I don’t think I sniffled too much. I think I hit the mute most of the times on my coughs and sniffles. See how annoying that would be if you’re constantly hearing that on the show?

Jonny Nastor: That would. Yeah. It’s hard.

Jerod Morris: For one, it would be annoying for Toby to have to go in and edit all of them.

Jonny Nastor: Right. Yeah, I guess that’s the main thing. We have Toby, so we could … but yeah.

Jerod Morris: But we wouldn’t want to. That wouldn’t be nice.

Jonny Nastor: How many times did you have to hit mute?

Jerod Morris: A lot. Basically after every time I talked. I’d be real focused as I was talking not to.

Jonny Nastor: I’d see you kind of move away, but I couldn’t tell if it was muted or you were just … yeah.

Jerod Morris: But you know what’s key? Then you have to remember to unmute yourself.

Jonny Nastor: You do. I worried about that.

Jerod Morris: That can then create awkward moments where you start talking, “Uh. Jerod, you’re muted,” and you’ve totally lost the momentum of the conversation and the flow.

Jonny Nastor: I know. You never can get it back. I’ve worried about that, but I haven’t done it yet.

Jerod Morris: That’s good.

Jonny Nastor: I have nothing for you. I don’t know what I was saying.

Jerod Morris: Yeah. I’ll stop recording now. I was recording that whole time.

Jonny Nastor: Oh yeah, so was I.

Jerod Morris: Nice. Bonus time. Bonus footage. Merry Christmas, everybody.