Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1197: Four Steps to Creating a Successful Podcast

Episode Date: January 2, 2020

1197: Four Steps to Creating a Successful Podcast The explosion and growth of podcasting! (2:00) How streaming is KING and cable/radio are dying. (5:23) The unlimited bandwidth of technology and low barrier to entry. (6:53) The HIGH conversion rate of podcasts and creating targeted markets. (8:00) Finding advertisers that match your audience. (11:48) Audio is the future. (15:13) Sound bite conversations vs long-form conversations. (16:00) Four Steps to Creating a Successful Podcast. #1 – Be an EXPERT and provide VALUE. (22:21) Invest in quality sound. (28:08) #2 – Be authentic and vulnerable. (31:54) #3 – Be consistent. (38:08) How your title matters! (42:38) Practice, practice, practice. (44:43) #4 - Encourage community. (48:30) The lifetime value of a customer. (51:55) People Mentioned Joe Rogan (@joerogan)  Instagram Bryan Callen (@bryancallen)  Instagram Brendan Schaub (@brendanschaub)  Instagram Jordan Harbinger (@jordanharbinger)  Instagram Kevin Kelly (@kevin2kelly)  Twitter   Related Links/Products Mentioned January Promotion: MAPS HIIT ½ off!! **Code “HIIT50” at checkout** 2019 Podcast Stats & Facts Mind Pump TV - YouTube Joe Rogan Experience #1169 - Elon Musk The Fighter and the Kid 1,000 True Fans Mind Pump Free Resources

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. In this episode of Mind Pump, so we don't talk too much about fitness in this episode, we talk about podcasting. Podcasts. We talk all about how to create a successful podcast. Like how do you start one and how do you make one

that's impactful and one that can become a business? As you guys know, my pump started five years ago and it's turned into quite the fun business for us. So we talk about what worked for us and what we see working for other podcasters. We start out with the episode by talking about the statistics around podcast, how fast are growing and what the future looks like for podcasting and why podcasting is the highest converting form of new media around.

Then we talk about the four things you should focus on if you want to be a successful podcast. We start out by talking about how to be an expert. Then we move on to talking about effective communication or how to communicate well. We talk about consistency, that's very important. And then we finally talk about encouraging community and why that's important if you wanna be a successful podcaster.

Now before the episode starts, it's January and our best most effective fat burning workout program that we have. This one's excellent for fat burning, especially in the short term. It's maps hit. Remember, hit stands for high intensity interval training. Now we have programmed it. So you're doing hit the right way with resistance training to maximize fat loss. Here's how you get the 50% off,

because it's on sale. Go to mapshit.com. That's M-A-P-S-H-I-I-T, and use the code hit50-H-I-I-T-5-0, no space for the discount. What's one of the top questions that you guys get in your DMs that it's not fitness? It's not fitness related. It's not not fitness related like what's the number one?

How do I pick up chicks? Yeah, what? Do you really? Yeah, I do I get like that would pick up lines and so that people you stress all time Oh, yeah, no, that was where you're going good for As a terrible you guys don't get people DMing you how to start a Successful podcast. Yeah, I do get that every now and then I get that DMing you how to start a successful podcast. Yeah, I do get that every now and then. I get that all the time as a DM and we even see it in our qualm.

When we put up the qualm game, we get questions underneath. That's like a recurring non-fitness related question. I actually just literally text someone, the message, someone that was messaging me. So I do get it, I'm just teasing you. Yeah. It is really popular. And I'm just teasing you. Yeah. It is really, and it's becoming more popular.

Dude, when we first started Mind Palm, there's so many of them. Almost five, it was five years ago. I remember people would ask me, hey, what do you do or whatever. And it's always, I start a podcast and people would be like, what's a podcast? I don't know if I've ever done it.

Do you remember that? No, I told you. I still have not used to the transition we've gone through because I got so used to the first two or three years of having to explain it all the time that I go right into explaining what I do, right? Instead of just saying like, oh yeah, we have a podcast. It was a lot like, you remember when the iPod came out

and like everybody like totally loved iPod and all this and then I would, I talked to somebody and was like, yeah, whatever iPod's done, like I listened to a Zoom. Like what the fuck is a Zoom? That was like what I felt like when I would, I talked to somebody and was like, yeah, whatever iPods done, I listened to a Zoom. Like, what the fuck is a Zoom? That was like what I felt like when I would say, I have a podcast. Yeah, or if you'd like to.

I have a Zoom. No, I immediately felt like I'd explain, I have like a real job. That's what I felt like. Yeah, that's great. So you're saying you're unemployed, that's what you think. Yes, the growth.

You're not with that. The growth of podcasting over the last five years has exploded, especially over the last two or three years. Like I was pulling up statistics. So this is 2018 statistics, okay? So it's just a year ago. 17% of Americans say that they had listened to a podcast in the last month, 17%. In 2019, 26%.

Almost double. last month, 17%. In 2019, 26%. Almost double. In one year, you went almost 10% growth from 2018 to 2019, which constitutes millions and millions of Americans. I guess that's not almost double. Sorry. I'm a math guy. I don't know how that happened with the 34, sorry. It's exploding, but what's really cool is that the potential for growth is still massive.

What we're at is the beginning of the rapid increase in podcast awareness. It's like the very beginning of shit exploding. I'm saying, because still to this day, 56% of Americans have never listened to a podcast. So still over half today have never listened to one, but 92% of Americans listen to the radio on a regular basis. Well, there's two problems they solve, right? I mean, being able to listen

and then carry that conversation with you outside of your car was a huge thing for me because I remember listening to the radio and I would get into shows, I get into the conversation, and then I had to go do stuff. Right. And then it's like,

yeah, and then you miss out. And then it's like, I would always like hear about it later from people in conversation and try and catch up that way. And then they totally, I mean, provided that extension whereas it's such a convenient feature.

Well, we see, the writing is on the wall with video and movies, television, right? I mean, it's right there for us if you don't believe it. I mean, it's obvious what has happened with streaming television. Oh, yeah. Cable is going to be gone. Yeah, is dead, is completely dead.

We're not completely. It's almost on its way. It's on its way. And it makes total sense why everybody is going the streaming route for those reasons like your naming right now, Justin. And literally, podcasting is the radio version of that. Dude, back in the day, the way everybody watched TV was with their antenna. They had an antenna on the top of the house and the TV had an antenna and you tuned in

to stations. Then cable became a thing. And I remember in the 80s, in the 80s was when cable really started to come out. MTV was one of the first stations or whatever to push cable. They came out with a high-watt, like I want my MTV or whatever.

Please give me cable, I want my MTV. Cable, now who the hell watches TV with antenna, you know, tuning in, nobody does, it's gone. The same thing is happening with cable with streaming. Very soon, very quickly, nobody does, it's gone. The same thing is happening with cable with streaming very soon, very quickly, it's gonna be totally gone. The same thing is happening, it's gonna happen to radio. Radio is gonna be dead, and it's gonna be all streaming audio, and that's where podcasts really shines.

So if, so when people are seeing this and advertisers are seeing this, because they're looking at the whole radio market, which was massive, still massive, but declining very quickly, that's the market that's going to move over to digital audio, which includes podcasts. Well, and the point that you always like to make that is so true in this case is how low the barrier to entry is.

That's, I mean, it's like, it's because the bandwidth is unlimited. Huge part of it. Yeah, even when we first all talked, I'll never forget when we thought of the idea of doing it. I mean, I was clueless to how inexpensive it was. And I remember when Doug was like, oh, yeah, I have the most equipment already. And I'm like, what?

And then we're like, how do we put it up? And he's like, we just put it up. Yeah, we don't even need this huge professional studio right away. Yeah, we just ran out of his living room. We did. And again, it's just, and here, it's because there's an unlimited band

with technology, because in the back in the day, you only had so many radio stations, it was limited. You couldn't just create a new radio station. So to get on a radio station, there were a lot of doors you had to walk through, there were a lot of barriers, there were a lot of people you had to, you know, had to be satisfied with what we're going to do. Mind pump 100% would not exist if the podcasting space didn't exist. So today, because the bandwidth is unlimited, anybody can start a podcast.

That's both good and bad. It's good because now, if you're listening right now, you want to start a podcast, it's great. Can it be challenging? Yes, it can be challenging to become the biggest podcast in the world, but you could definitely build a nice loyal audience if you do a pretty good job.

Well, if you have compelling points and you're an expert in a field, I mean, that's a massive advantage that you have coming into it because, again, this is what you saw on YouTube too, where it was like, they're finding like real talent in stars, you know, from formats like that that would have never got exposure, but it was that they were that good that they shined through all those people. So, ad revenue for podcasts in 2018 was well over a half a billion dollars. That was 2018. It's growing exponentially, meaning it's growing faster and faster and faster, and we're

probably five years away, maybe 10 at most, from podcast revenue being one of the, it's going to be one of the number one places that companies spend money on ads. And the reason for that is of all of the new media platforms, podcasts convert the highest. They just do. If you, and when you look at the different media platforms, each one of them has a conversion rate, right? So like, you know, Instagram has a certain conversion rate versus Facebook versus YouTube. The longer and more profound the content is allowed to be, the better the conversion rate is.

So, 10,000 listeners on a podcast is equivalent to like 150,000 or 200,000 or more people on YouTube, or millions of people on Instagram because it's long format, you're listening to the person's in your ear. So, when it to selling a product or promoting it or influencing people, podcasting is king. It's absolutely king. I also think it starts to niche down your audience better than any other thing too, right? Like when you watch something like a sporting event, like football, I mean, the type of people

that are all tuning in, the millions of people that are watching at that moment, and then we all get hit sit with the same commercial. So, you know, I see the same Dorito commercial as, you know, Katrina does that, you know, saying, and so you, it's like, it's really hard to target us individually on what we would probably consume. And so it's very generic, right? So just throwing spaghetti on the wall and just hoping something sticks. So it's a good point. But with advertising with a podcast, you have a pretty much a single topic for most part of what really it encompasses whether it be fitness or health or finance or motivation or

And within that you have topics that are being covered by these hosts So you can really start to understand who who listens to these people So even if it is only 5,000 people that are listening to you, it's a much more narrowed down avatar, which in marketing, if the more narrowed down the avatar can be the easier that they can market to this. What a boon for producers, because let's say you come out with a product that has a lot of success potential, but it really has your targeting and narrow audience, but it still has a lot

of potential. In the past, it would cost too much money to advertise it on a broadcast media platform. You invent, for example, chili pad, okay, how are we going to advertise this on TV? It's going to cost way too much. The conversion's not going to be good enough, not going to make this money. But now a company like that can target audiences that are interested in health, want to spend extra money on quality sleep or whatever.

So it actually gives producers more effective avenues for advertising, and that's one of the reasons why podcasting is exploding. And that's also another reason why a lot of producers are successful, because now they have a way to, like you said Adam, target a specific audience. To that point, I think since we're doing a podcast around this, we should share what

that looks like, too. So there's a formula that's out there for how podcasters get advertising as far as how much money should you get based off of how big your audience is. And it goes by, and this is different from podcasts to podcasts. If you do a really good job, you should be able to get this number up. But there's a generic number that when you first start getting involved, that most advertisers and companies

are looking for and that's 20 to $25 per CPM and CPM represents the amount of listeners, which is 1,000. So for every thousand listeners, you're getting paid 20 to roughly $30 for that ad. But you can do way better than that. Some podcasts do four times. I mean, that was something that we saw right away as we got into this space. We recognized that because again, this is a very, which is I love getting into a market

very similar like when I got into the cannabis industry when it was really early, when you're really early to the marketplace, there's a lot of opportunity to do things better. And, you know, this is even though it's been around for nine years, it's still relatively new for the majority and the advertising side of the house

is really a cluster flock. And we saw that instantly like, okay, wait a second. You mean to tell me, you know, I have all these years of sales experience, not only selling myself, but then also teaching others how to do it. So I've refined the skill really well. And I've been doing that for two decades. And you're gonna lump me in the same category as, you know, Earl, who's 72

and is never sold in his life and he's a boring monotone author who is talking on a podcast. And yet, just because we have the same amount of downloads, we're both gonna get the same amount of money for advertising. Well, that's a bunch of bullshit. Yeah. So, you know, we saw that opportunity and when we started to do advertising instead of waiting for the companies to come to us and, you know, playing by their terms, we sought after companies that we knew would match with our audience and brands that we liked and that we would be using and then we convinced them to spend more money with us knowing that we would do better for it. Right. Now, generally speaking, generally speaking, the podcast audience are, the listeners are more loyal than the average consumer of other media, meaning they're more likely to tune in consistently than consumers of TV, social media, and other things.

They're more affluent and they're more educated. It's actually the perfect audience. If you're trying to sell a product, that's the audience you want. You want loyal, affluent, educated people, podcast listeners fall in that category. Podcasters or podcast listeners are much more active on every social media channel. They're far more likely to subscribe to things like Netflix and Amazon, which means they're less likely to be exposed to TV advertising. So podcasting is just, and it's, you know, I know some people are like, oh my god, it's so hard now or whatever. No, no, you're still in the beginning. Believe me, it's still, I mean, it's not like the Wild West was five years ago, but it's still as an incredible opportunity because what we're talking about is it's going to explode It's growing faster and faster and it's a phenomenal space to enter and there's a low barrier to entry now

What are some of the reasons why you guys think they know I know Gary V's been saying this now for At least you know five to seven years. I've been hearing him Tought this for a while like audio was gonna be the very next thing Yeah, yeah, that audio is going to be the very next thing. Yeah, that audio is going to be the future period. I agree. And my theory on that is because we're getting to this time where we can be doing so many things at once, like multitasking. You can multitask, you can drive. Amazon Alexa is audio, Siri is audio, pretty soon you'll be buying things and hearing things audio. so instead of going on Amazon Prime,

I'll say, hey, Alexa, I'd like to buy a pair of white salt, whatever, we have these three choices, which one would you like? How much is that one called? It'll be a conversation. It's just a faster medium of communicating. I also think there's just been a general mistrust of media, and that's come to like it's climax. People just don't trust the sources of news out there that they're getting from people

and these are all really short sound bite conversations and there's, you know, people are just like completely sick of that format and I think that like podcasting is a platform that actually provides a long form conversation around subjects and also even on the political sphere, like it brings them in to actually have a long form conversation where, well, I want to know what you really like think about this policy in depth, not just like your knee jerk reaction. Totally, because like Joe Rogan, who's one of the most widely consumed pieces of media period, period. In fact, his podcast gets more listens or whatever, you know, then all mainstream media news outlets

combined on just his one podcast. And his episodes are two to four hours long. If you went back 10 years, 15 years, and you said, hey, we're gonna make a two or three hour, four hour channel, what do you think everybody was, you're crazy. Yeah, you're crazy. That'll never lose, everyone. And the reason is because we were,

we were reading the signals wrong. We thought that people wanted short tidbits of information because that's all we were able to deliver because the bandwidth was so short If a politician was getting on TV or an athlete or someone was supposed to talk about something they had five minutes ten minutes max So you got really good at the the taglines or whatever complex Discussions couldn't be had because I cannot talk about so I wonder if that's changing or we are just we have just Provided something that attracts the more intelligent. Meaning, you know, there's still the people that get, you know, bamboozled

by Facebook ads or by YouTube, short video, funny clips or click baity type things. Yet, we still see this rise that we're talking about in podcasting. So I wonder if it's we just didn't have the option before. Right. Like the really intelligent people were still just getting hammered by that said they weren't buying into it. Like a lot of the lemmings were. And somebody finally got smart and said, Hey, you know what? These smart people, there's an opportunity still to market, advertise, speak to them. They want it more in a longer form. And so what we see is less of things changing so much.

And it's just we've now provided something for more intelligent people. No, no, it's not just the more intelligent people. It's that this is what people have always wanted. They've always wanted complex conversations to be explained properly. It's far more attractive. The problem is you couldn't do it before. If I was going to talk about fitness, if I was going to talk about fitness and explain fat loss,

which I can talk about decently in an hour and do a good job of really communicating properly an hour, you put me and tell me to talk about fat loss in five minutes. I'm going to convey a shitty message. It's going to be catchy, it's going to get your attention. I don't know if it's what everybody always wanted. I'm gonna convey a shitty message. It's gonna be catchy, it's gonna get your attention. I don't, I don't know if it's what everybody always wanted. I don't know if I agree with that. Cause look at our example, our YouTube channel.

One of the number one complaints that we have to deal with is, you know, just get to the exercise. Just give me the tip. Just tell me what I need to do. And there's people that are searching on there. They're using it like a Google search. Yeah, so it's utility though. Right, how to build my shoulders, what if that? They don't want another science. They like a Google search. It's utility though. Right, how to build my shoulders, what are that?

They don't want another science, they don't want to hear about Sal or Adam talk about anything like that. Give me the fucking exercise so I can move along. But if you search podcast, so I really think that it's just a little self-selection here, it's actually the intelligent people, the people that are seeking the truth, the people that will listen in extra 20 minutes to get to

the real answer, they don't think of that as wasting their time. That's starting to... Here's a categorize those people. Of course, there's always people. Of course, there's people in either camp, but here's my evidence. The most widely consumed form of media before, television, and radio, and all that were books. You had books and they were spread everywhere. The Bible is the most widely circulated book known to man. The second most widely circulated was Marco Polo's Travels. People wanted to learn and wanted information, but when you have a limited bandwidth, all

you deliver are short things. So I think yes, there's definitely people that just want here and there, they wanna hear a few things. But I think we totally miscalculated how many people wanna hear the full story. You look at the interview of Elon Musk with Joe Rogan. That interview of Elon Musk got way more views than any of his short interviews on NBC or whatever,

because people wanna hear like the real stuff. And so this is a great opportunity, but it also makes it difficult if you're a bullshitter. If you don't know what you're talking about, it's hard to bullshit a podcast. It's a great equalizer. Yeah, it's easy to bullshit a short clip. Very hard, like you get, imagine if politicians

had to get on an economy podcast, a podcast with economists, they would crumble. Most of them would crumble because they're going to get asked real questions that you can't just shoot back and forth real fast. It's going to be a two hour conversation. And I feel like we're just, I think we're just appealing to a smarter group of people that weren't trying to butter up our audience right now.

Yeah. Well, it's true. If you're listening, you're probably pretty damn smart. Well, that's true. It says that about that. Yeah, no, there's statistic proof. And I think it's more that. Otherwise, movie theaters would be less packed

in libraries would be more full. I mean, it's just, there's still going to be, you know, and that interview example you just gave, well, that, you know, the 22 year old, you know, our 17 year old kid in high school probably didn't watch that interview. He caught the YouTube sound bite of something and wanted something short. So I still think that I still think those short things are going to survive and they're still going to, you know, still get a lot of the

idiots. Sure. And but the conversion rate of podcasts rests on the fact that it's long form and it's influential. Yes. And you cannot influence as powerfully in a short, you know, bit of time. Maybe sometimes, but that definitely not on a consistent basis. Which is why I agree with that. Yeah, which is why podcasting is such an excellent medium to get into if you want to build a business off of media.

But I think there's a few steps that are important to take or to identify within yourself as to whether or not, you're gonna have a successful podcast because I don't think everybody or anybody can start a podcast and be successful. The number one thing that I'm gonna make an argument for is this, if you're gonna start a podcast, be an expert.

Now, I don't mean you need to be a doctor or a lawyer if you're going to talk a lot or whatever, but what I mean is, if whatever your podcast is about, if all it is is you're having fun conversation with your friends, you should probably be a comedian or an expert communicator. If your podcast is going to be about sports, you should probably know sports pretty damn well. If you're gonna have a podcast about fitness, and the reason why I say that is, you're gonna be talking for an hour, and you're gonna be doing episodes every single week,

and at some point, if you don't know what you're talking about. Yeah, aimless conversations only goes so far. Right. I mean, they're fun, and we get into that sometimes too, and I had fully enjoyed those moments, but at the same time, it has to be rooted in something, and, you know, this is all with like trying to find your why. I mean, this is it with every business.

You really do have to spend that time, you know, what is it I'm trying to convey? What is it that, you know, I'm gonna try and do with this? You have to really put a lot of time in that direction and think about it. Well, I think people find a podcast like fighter in the kid, for example, like what do they talk about? They're not, they don't really talk about anything in general.

They just hear two guys being funny and having great conversations. It's topical and being funny. And they all, I can do that. Yeah, I can get on there with my buddy. No, no, no, Brian Callins has been a comedian for 20 something years. Yeah. And that's the reason why that can happen. These are experts at their field or what they're doing.

Well, and even more so than being an expert, it does fall kind of on that category. I think it's more important that you just add value. And value sometimes could be comedic relief. It could be that entertainment. Yeah, I want to be entertained. And I love listening to the fight in the kid because they're extremely entertaining. And you're right. It's not just a couple of guys, even though they make it come off like a couple guys just

playing goofing, those guys take their craft very seriously. I mean, even Brendan Schabb, who wasn't a comedian when he started, he pursued that to sharpen his skills on that side. And yes, he's always had an unbelievable co-host that is intelligent and funny. So they make it look simple and easy, but they are very good at their craft. At the end of the day, though, what it is is they add value. People listen to it, it's funny,

it makes them laugh and smile for the day, they get to hear current events and topics, those that love MMA, Brennan Shobb does a lot of stuff around that, so every time you listen to an episode, if you're into those things, you get value from it. 100%, we would have never survived off of our skills in podcasting if it wasn't for that. That at the end of the day, like us, our haters,

you would listen to an episode and you would get valuable information. And we were talking about a subject we've been talking about for decades. We were talking and why it was so valuable because at that time, a lot of the stuff we were sharing was kind of paradigm shattering and counter common knowledge in our space. And that's where we saw opportunity. We saw, okay, we have an opportunity to get into a space, share with people our experience,

our knowledge over the last two decades that's counter to what's being presented right now, which left us an opportunity. It's okay, nobody else is really saying this message. Yeah, we're not gonna be the best at it yet, but it's gonna be compelling enough because it's gonna add value to people's lives every time they listen.

And that was for sure the reason why we could do otherwise, we, even if somebody listens to the show now, because they go, oh my god, they're fun and they're funny and they cover topics, they're like my news. We hear all that now, but that was over the course of over a thousand episodes of refining our skills and improving on what we do in our craft. But at the very beginning, we leaned heavily on,

okay, this has to add value, value, value, value, value. And the only way to really add consistent value on a long form format is to know what you're talking about. You have to be somewhat of an expert in terms of whatever it is you want to communicate. So if it's Entertainment, then you should probably be experienced entertainer. So you know somebody who's Practice stand up comedy for years or improv or a presenter. Maybe you're somebody who does lots of speeches and talks and you just Excellent at that. So now you have a podcast and it's entertaining and then throwing, that's fine, you're an expert in that. Maybe you want to talk about health.

Well, you better know what you're talking about. If you want to talk about science, you better know what you're talking about because you can get away with bullshitting on a short form format. I can bullshit an Instagram post or even a short blog, I can bullshit, but try to bullshit an hour long podcast day,

weekend and a week out, it's just not gonna work. Stay in your lane and be an expert. That's number one for me, because I see a lot of people who start podcasts and oh, I started a podcast with my friend style. It's pretty cool. What do you guys talk about? Oh, we just talk and have fun.

It's like a lifestyle podcast. Yeah, that's a big one. Oh, it's a lifestyle podcast. Are you a Kizzi? Are you a lifestyle expert? We're all's a big one. Oh, it's a lifestyle podcast. Are you a Kizet? Are you a lifestyle expert? We're all doing a lifestyle right now. I don't know very many lifestyle experts out there. And if you are one, you better damn well be entertaining

and very experienced in that field. So that's why I said that number one. It's almost like you got to have something to bring to the table before you try all the other stuff, you know, what comes to, you know, making a successful podcast. That brings us to the second one. Communicate well. Learn how to communicate very, very well. Now to start with, this sounds very simple, but it's ridiculous how this continues to happen. Make sure you have good sound. This was Doug was huge. Really big on this when we first started. He would hang up blankets and make sure

that there was a carpet on the floor. He would even put a tarp, like a fluffy tarp over the table that the microphones were on when we were in his living room. And all the three of us were kind of like, ah, let's get this going. Let's just start the podcast. He was a stickler on sound. But studies show when people listen to anything

where the sound isn't good. Even if the information is good, you just want to turn it off. Well, and especially nowadays, there's so many podcasts now. They used to get away with it a bit back when it was first coming out and you'd have one, whatever that was called, that one mic in the middle where everybody's kind of contributing towards it, all this like feedback You know you're getting from that and you know It was sort of like the Wild West and but now everybody's pin, you know more attention to the quality of the sound and

I mean think about it. You're sitting there. You're listening in your headphones and do you really want a bunch of static and a bunch of Background noise happening like that irritates well, it's it's Relatively inexpensive to make the quality of the sound really, really good. And so it's no different than why the fuck nobody sits down and watches a 1980s boob tube, right anymore. Like you know what I'm saying? You could probably go on to eBay and find like an old 1980s television that still may work.

But who the hell is gonna use that when I can go down to Costco and find like an old 1980s television that still may work. Yeah. But who the hell is going to use that when I can go down to Costco and buy one the same size for probably the same price or less and it's like 50% lighter. It's just doesn't make sense. You would way rather watch that in great quality because it's that easy and accessible. Now, that's where the sound quality is in podcasting is. It's not that difficult to elevate your sound and put a little little. It's not a big investment at all. No, it's not a major investment to have professional

type sound quality. Now everybody thinks it's the mics that create. Now, the mics do play a large role. Firemen. But yeah, good mics are not that expensive. You can find them on Amazon for a few hundred bucks and you have a decent mic. What are these running? 250 done. These are 400 a piece. The original ones. The original ones we had were a hundred bucks a piece. 100, 100, yes. You don't need super fancy mics,

but what you do need is a room that doesn't echo and that has that really absorbed sound. Deadens the sound. Deadens the sound. So I have a friend who started a podcast and he took my advice to heart and he went in his closet. In his closet, he made sure the walls had blankets carpet, really does a good job of absorbing sound. Cheap foam.

He has clothes already in there. We use foam on the sides. And that made it huge because we can have the best mics in the world, but if I'm recording in a, you know, a tiled bathroom or a echoey room, it's just going to sound shitty. So that's really key, you know. And it's one of those little things that you can do that just, it's one less thing someone's gonna complain about and make them leave. There's other things that are far,

like getting good at communicating may take you hundreds, maybe thousands of episodes to get really good at your craft, right? So that's just flat out. That could take a long time, where taking a little bit of money and investing in how you improve your quality of your sound is a reasonably small investment you can do immediately. And that's just one less thing that somebody is going to be turned off by.

So it's like, to me, that's a no brainer place to come. And you automatically separate yourself and sound professional automatically. Now in five or 10 years, everyone's going to sound really good. But right now, if you have good sound, and someone hears you, automatically sound polished, automatically sound professional. Now, another thing you want to do for a good communication, and this is something that I'll give us some credit on

before we even were good at podcasting, we learned how to be really authentic and vulnerable. And this was a skill that we learned personal training clients. So none of us did podcasting, none of us were on media, but through years and years and years of training clients, you start to learn how to be effective with what you say. And because you're communicating basic information,

you eat less, move more, lift weights, you know, here's what carbs do, fats do, proteins do, and all that kind of stuff. But then you start to figure out, like, wait a minute, like the information is important, but what's more important is am I getting buy-in? And one of the most effective ways to get buy-in is to sound or become authentic and vulnerable

because then the person believes and trusts you. And this is it, this right here is key. It's funny because that's one of those accidental things that really worked in our benefit. I think if we were starting out and we're trying to listen to the people's advice of how we should run a podcast back then, it would've been the old entertainment style

where it's like, you know, has to be all scripted. You guys wanna stay away from this type of language and you know, you guys, like, we were just like being ourselves and that was part of it was talking to clients and the way that you were able to relate and connect with clients was, you know, to really to be vulnerable and share stories and things that, you know, you're not awesome all the time.

Like, people connect with that. Now, a counterpoint that I wanna make to that though too is that, you know, you're not awesome all the time. Like people connect with that. Now a counterpoint that I want to make to that though too, is that, you know, there are different styles of, of podcasters. For example, you know, we, I think we would fall under a category more like Joe Rogan and fight it in the kid stylistically as far as what you're just, conversational, more conversational,

more just being authentic, real and sharing opinions. Now that doesn't mean there's, you can be very successful like like our friend, Jordan Harbinger, who runs a more formatted and formal type of one. He's been doing this for nine years. He is very structured, methodical about his approach and his interview skills, and has had a tremendous amount of success. So knowing where he's a black belt though at media communication.

Right, right. And I'm saying, and that takes a long time and it takes skill dedicated to me. Well, it takes that. And more importantly, a lot of what, I mean, he made a living off of teaching people how to enhance that skill because he didn't have it naturally.

So it's, you can work at this and you can prepare really well. I mean, if you, if you're, if you do better with that and that is your style, then I would, I would tell you to lean into that. If you're not a natural conversationalist and you don't like talking for long periods of time and you don't add lib well, then maybe you are better off with really trying to think about, okay, these are the questions I want to ask and talk about. This is the direction I want to take my listeners, then I'm going to go here and plot that out.

Yeah, I do think along those lines, like there are podcasts out there that do crazy well that are really high production. Yes. And so they're, you know, and story wise, like stories do well. People love stories and stuff that are really high produced, and they have, you know, clean transitions, and you really pay attention to, you know, enhancing that experience, you know, there's a place for that. There's a place for messy conversations.

You don't know what's going to happen. Like it's, so I think it's really determines on what your strengths, where that goes. And I feel like it depends who we're talking to yet Right if I'm talking to a media personality if I'm talking to someone who's on TV or has experience radio Or you know, then I would say yeah, that makes a lot of sense if I'm talking to Somebody who's like looking I have a lot of experience media, but I'm an expert on hormones I want to start a podcast then I think being authentic and vulnerable is gonna be to be part of their strategy because the media, I don't necessarily agree with that. How do you get good at being like, look at us.

How we were good in the beginning, not because we were good at media. We fall in that category. I think you talk to somebody who is more like an engineer or a doctor and that is, is a little more methodical and pay way more attention to detail and maybe a little more dry and doesn't have that personality like you have or Justin or myself, they would probably do much better to leaning into, you know, being more structured in the way that they deliver a podcast. Well, wouldn't that be authentic for them?

Sure. Sure. So authenticity. structured in the way that they deliver a podcast. Well, wouldn't that be authentic for them? Sure. So sure. Sure. So authenticity. I just would, I would, the counterpoint that I wanted to make to, to Justin, the great point that Justin was making is that I don't want people to think that they have to follow in this path that we went down,

which is this conversational humanize, be authentic, be yourself, have a good time and just talk, you know, and be experts in your field. It's, no, you can, you can actually have a plan time and just talk, and be experts in your field. No, you can actually have a plan. I'm trying to teach this right now to a couple people that are close to me that are starting podcasts,

and knowing that one of them is a principal, and he is completely opposite of me or any of us in this room. And I'm not gonna try and say, like, hey, listen to how we do this and kind of have this free flowing conversation. No, that is not him. He is definitely, Mr. Ainal organized,

structured, doesn't say a lot, but then also has, he does have a lot of valuable information to present to his audience and what he wants to talk about, and a lot of experience in it. He's been in the education system for two decades now and he's very intelligent, but his podcast will feel more like a powerpoint presentation than that. And that's his authenticity, right? Because he's not going to copy.

Sure. So I think at the end of the day, the point stands, you want to be real and authentic to yourself. And for us, it was how we communicated to clients, it's how we communicated on the podcast. If you're a great presenter, and that doesn't, our style doesn't fit your style, I think copying us would probably be a mistake, I would agree with you. And it's all about being authentic because in long form communication,

that really does come out. When you're trying to be something that you're not, I don't think it's gonna come out very well in an hour long consistent podcast that comes out every single week, which brings us to the next one, which is, and this one's funny because it sounds obvious, but I'm surprised how many people miss this one, is to be consistent. You know, when I was a kid, you watch a TV show, it came on. A certain time of the day, a certain channel, you could expect it to

show on it. You could count on it. Although podcasts are out there and they're recorded and they're available, your core audience will learn to depend on when you release an episode. So skipping weeks, I know a lot of podcasts just do this, they'll release some episodes and I'll ask them, how's your podcast going? Oh, I haven't done any in a couple of weeks when I'm going to get back on it. You're gonna kill your most avid fans and listeners by doing that. This is actually the first piece of advice that I give, even before the other ones we did it.

And because, and I got really frustrated with one of the two people that I'm helping right now and that's all capital letters like when we were texting, I'm like, be consistent with whatever you decide to start with less. You know, if your goal is to have three shows or five shows a week eventually, don't start there. Start with one time a week or even bi-leakly.

Whatever you decide, you're going to tell your audience and what you're going to do, stick to that and be very consistent. To the point that I highly recommend and I tell anybody that's doing this, you should have a minimum of 15 to 20 shows already locked and loaded and ready to go. That way you can, you can, when you, first of all, when you launch, you should launch, what is it, Doug, four, six, how many? Do you launch right away? I'd say three at the minimum.

Right away, right? The first day, like three go out right away, and then I think we followed up like a couple more in a couple. So within the first week or two, we were releasing probably six or so episodes somewhere around there, right? It's it's it's it's you're so you're going to need just to get that first week because here's the thing, when you first launch a podcast in the first eight weeks, you are ranked only against other people that are starting their podcasts in the last eight weeks. Yeah, they call that the new and notable section. Yes.

And on iTunes, and you have an opportunity to rank highly on that. Absolutely. This is your best, I mean, to try and compete with somebody who has built an audience over the last five years is silly. No matter how famous you are on Instagram or how big your email list is, to try and compete

with someone that big already. But if you already have a small audience of people from social media or you have some pull or you're talented and you start off getting that attention early on and getting ranked in the new and noteworthy is really valuable. So you need to have a good plan when you first start off, you need to have a good amount of episodes

that you already have stored, and then you can release relatively quick, and then after that, already be planning for what's coming the next eight weeks. So you don't get stuck like one of the people that I'm helping right now, or you know, all of a sudden, the he ran of an idea.

It's like, dude, you can't just, you know, pause for a week because you didn't have a good idea, and your reason behind not going is because, oh, I wanted to be authentic, like you said. And I didn't want to just bullshit something so I didn't do anything. Well, that's a fucking...

That's taking it too far. Yeah, that's a terrible idea. Like, you know, spend some time in preparation and coming up with ideas ahead of time and planning and I know that was something we did. We now we knew with our experience that we would have unlimited conversations and topics to talk about just from our experience alone, but that doesn't mean we still didn't map out and have ideas of, hey, let's start with the...

No, I think when we first started, we launched the three or whatever and I think we had like 10 episodes or 15 already recorded. Yeah. We were already sitting there ready to go and because you want to be super consistent, you want, if you do build a core audience, which is what you want. And what I mean by that is you'll have a core audience and then you'll have people that pop in and out. But if you do a good job, the core starts to grow.

And what you don't want to do is alienate your core audience because they're the most influenced by your podcast in terms of revenue, in terms of what you're trying to sell or produce. Those are the people that are going to be the biggest impact. And if you release an episode once a week, every single week on Monday, and then the following week you do it on Wednesday, Thursday, or you skip a week, you're gonna lose a chunk of your most valuable audience.

So I'd say, whatever you decide to go with, you gotta stay with. So air on the side of less. So rather than being super ambitious and saying, I'm going to do five episodes a week. Okay, how many episodes can you start with? And you know, for sure, you can do consistently for at least a couple of years. That's what that's the question you would want to ask. Now, I don't know if this this falls under the be consistent category or where you would want to slot this information. But I do think it's important. I remember us learning

this lesson. And how you title matters. The way the podcast algorithm works now, it's very similar to like a Google type search. So titles that are more likely to be searched or titles that jump out at people when they're looking through multiple different podcasts is important. So, you know, just saying episode one, and it's your name or something. So, you know, I'm saying like nobody knows who Adam Schaefer is at this point. Well, and episode three,

or whatever my business name might be at that time, not a great strategy. Doing titles that are gonna grab somebody who has maybe never heard you, and now they listen to you or that are more likely to be shared, that's important. So, yeah, I remember when we figured that out, it was so like duh, because I mean, how do you use, how do you find things on Google? You know, it's like, what are you interested in? Of course, podcasting is going to get on that level

where it's like, you're just searching for an actual topic and you'll be able to find You know new podcasts that are covering these things So I think there's a lot more chance in visibility if you do have that strategy Well, we also learned later on too when we had a much larger audience to where it could really separate this and see this is that You know the downloads that we have it. It's not like a people that listen to podcast It a small percentage of them are the type of people that are like, I listen to every show. Every show I never miss, I listen every single day, diehard fan.

That's a small percentage of the bulk of downloads that we're getting here. Most people weave in and out or have busy lives or drop in when they can and listen to a podcast episode. And the way most of those people choose is they drop into our mind pump, iTunes screen and they look at the last five or six episodes and the title that appeals to them,

they listen to it and they listen in that order. So this is an important, I think, strategy for people to pay attention to when titling your episode. As far as being consistent, here's another one. Practice a lot, podcast often. I could say that I learned this through fitness myself. You know, if you want to get good at a squat, you squat often, you practice it and practice it and you do reps.

For us, this was extremely true. Again, we had zero experience with media, but one thing we did is we had a lot of information on fitness, we could talk fitness all day long, so we pushed it. We started out with I think three episodes a week then four now five, and we just podcast, podcast, and what's funny with us, and this is different from person to person, but with us, it seems like every hundred episodes or so, we reach a new level of skill in terms of what we do.

This was very clear early on. It was like from zero to 100, totally different than from like 150 to 250, and then every 100 or so, we just get to a new level. And that's all for practice. Yeah, I think there's a lot of freedom in that mentality too,

because I know like there's a lot of people out there that are really critical and self-critical of the kind of content that they would put out and fearful, you know, fearful of how people are gonna receive it. And if you, if you just like have a solid plan and, you know, you, you record these episodes like we're talking about, but you put it out there and you have it with the mentality

that you're gonna keep getting better. And the only way to keep getting better is to just keep pumping these out and then also, you know, pay attention to the response and pay attention to what is striking a chord and what is not with your audience. It's really a war of attrition. Can you keep showing up week after week and putting out content and knowing that

you've got a long way ahead of you still, or? You're not gonna make a dime for a couple of years. Yeah, you're not gonna make any money for a long time. You're not gonna penetrate a a dime for a couple of years. Yeah, you're not going to make any money for a long time. You're not going to penetrate a ton of people right away. You're going to, it's going to take a long time before you get a solid base where you can probably make really good revenue. And can you keep trucking along?

Can you keep doing it and keep it a long road and keep showing up every day? And I think that's why a lot of people struggle. It's just that. I remember when I first turned on Instagram with the intention to build a business around it. And I remember hanging out and meeting with Taylor and talking about this.

And one of the things that I remember him telling me is that most people just can't stick with it. They want the attention, they want the money, they want the success, they want the business to come from it right away, because they hear of, oh, so and so, they want the money, they want the success, they want the business to come from it right away, because they hear of, oh, so and so, they have this big Instagram business or so and so built this off a Facebook

and they make millions and they compare themselves to that and they think that they're gonna follow that same path and it's just not realistic for most people. Most people that are normal people that don't have some weird talent that everybody wants to pay attention to, you know, you have to build and refine that skill and that just takes reps.

I mean, one of the things I think we always love to talk about is amongst ourselves off air, is I mean, how many, is it 10,000 hours before you're considered a master? That's what they say. And we talk about, we're not even halfway there on podcasting. And to me, that excites me.

That doesn't like discourage me like, oh my God, that's so far away. It makes me go like, whoa, we've come a long way from where we were when we first started. We're still nowhere near where we consider ourselves experts. I know how shitty of a trainer I was, even the success that I had early years well before those 10,000 hours hit.

I know I wasn't very good. I know how much better I became when I considered myself an expert as a trainer. And that excites me about podcasting. That, you know, I'm still haven't hit that 10,000 hour threshold and we have a long ways to go to really improve our school. And do you have, do you have what it takes to stick with it when you're not making a lot of money?

And that means you gotta be okay with sucking. That's the 100%. You're going to suck before you're good. So practice often and be okay with sounding bad at first because it's gonna get better. Now the last thing I'd say that's important, I think this is important for any business, but especially for a podcast business,

is to encourage community among the people that listen. Now this is important because here's a deal with podcasting. It's the odds that you're going to create a podcast that's going to reach tens of millions of people is very, very slim. It's very, very, very slim. But if you're decent, you're an expert in your field, you do a good job with all the stuff that we're talking about,

you could build a community that can generate, you know, a nice deep six figure business for yourself. But that means you need to talk to and tend to your community. So I would suggest doing things like building private forums, answering people's questions on social media, being accessible to connect with these people because that turns an audience of thousands into a bank account that potentially could look like hundreds of thousands.

Well, who's the first to say it? I don't remember. Who talked about the thousand tribe first? I don't know. Do you remember who that was? It wasn't Tim Ferriss. It was someone with Tim Ferriss, I think reference to whoever. I don't remember who it was, but I know there's a book out there called Tribe, but they

talked about that. There's an article called The Thousand True Fan. Yeah, yeah. And it talks about, yeah, see who it is. I can show and give the right person credit because I know I've referenced this many times because I 100% believe it to be really true and really close to being like spot on accurate. I think it's Kevin Kelly.

Really? Yeah, that's not who I thought. I think that's correct. Okay, cool. So when we got to that point where, you know, and for us, the best measure of this was the forum, right? The private forum where you had to pay access to get into this.

So if you valued us and the information that we were giving, the amount that it cost to get into our form at that time, because it was a one time fee, then you were in back then. So if you, if you, you saw enough value in us that you would pay to get in this private form, we knew that you valued the information, obviously we were providing and you were probably a valued customer.

And so those people, so not when we had a thousand listeners, but we had a thousand people that were willing to spend a couple bucks on us to be closer to us in that form. When that hit a thousand people, was when I think we really had a real business. When we really started to monetize and be able to make money consistently enough to start to begin to scale this business. And that doesn't mean it got easy. It doesn't mean like it all fell together then. It just meant that we got, okay,

we have a real business on our hands now. We have enough loyal people that they can really, they were the foundation. And I hop on there occasionally to And to remind them how valuable and how important they are to us and our community because if it wasn't for those first thousand people Mine, put what it exists. It's funny because we've gotten so our views have gotten so distorted on Numbers we see things like 100,000 followers, 500,000 followers. I mean, if you, any, any business would die, they would kill to get 1,000 customers, 1,000 customers

of any business. I mean, 15 years ago, you started brick and mortar business. You got, if you had a gym with 1,000 members paying you, you know, you're making great money. You're making great money. It's, it's all it is. So it's no different. The difference is it's virtual, but the way you build your business is by treating them like a thousand customers. To that point, so that brings me to something that's been on top of mine for me

because when we went to Arizona, you don't get an opportunity to talk to a lot of other quote unquote influencers that have successful businesses and they have marketing guys and teams that are supporting them that are running all the analytics. And I love that talk. And a lot of these guys that are doing that talk about, you know, oh yeah, we get to this conversion rate on Facebook, you know, that's when we scaled up and we were making millions and this is what's going on. And then I love to ask what lifetime value is on

on their customers. And a lot of them would be like, oh yeah, when it comes to that, people are really finicky. And only about 20% or less, the people buy something else from us once they buy the one. And what that tells me is that we are in a time right now, especially with the way Facebook is, in Facebook ads, most people know that that's the new Google ads, and that's where one of the best places is to advertise is on Facebook. So many companies and businesses are so focused on acquisition that they fail to pay attention

to retention. And back when you were in brick and mortar, and these tools didn't exist where you could acquire all of a sudden, 10,000 leads in a day, which is insane. Before the internet existed, and you had to go meet, you couldn't a sudden 10,000 leads in a day, which is insane, you know, before the internet existed, and you had to go meet, you couldn't meet just 10,000 people in one day to make them customers, right? You had to really take your time.

You got one person who walked through your store. Oh yeah, you were so close to that. How were you? You walked over to them, you asked them about their day, you found out about them. I mean, you just read Carp of that person because it is the only fucking lead you had all day long, and you treat

him that way. Business still hasn't changed. Not in that sense. People still want to feel that experience when they opt in and buy or purchase or experience anything within your community. And so valuing the retention piece in business and focusing your energy on that, not worrying about having this massive audience where I need to look cool on Instagram

and have a million people, I'm way more impressed with somebody who only has a thousand people that are paying attention but those thousand people, when they talk about you or when they say anything about your product or what you provide for them, they speak of you as like life changing for them. Like, oh my God, what they've done. That is so much more powerful

than just having a million eyes on you. And maybe not at first, not dollars, because if you do have a million eyes and you only convert it 1%, 1% of a million, it's still a lot more than, you know, 20% of a thousand. So you're still going to get a lot more money up front on the more attention. And that's why I think so many people

are focused on acquisition. But what's funny is that what people don't realize is getting the attention of a million people is actually harder, more impossible than developing tremendous value with 1,000 people. The reality is, it's actually, although it takes work, it's the more realistic route. Now, what happens when that 1,000 turns into a million?

Now, you've got some real power in turns into a million now you've got some real How are you a company now you've got a real company doing a phenomenal job So I would say stay away from worrying too much about gathering millions and millions of people But rather encourage the community among the people that's right take care of the five paying attention to you That's it take care of the five talk to them find out what you can do better for those people. And this still reigns true in this business today. People ask a lot of times like the direction we're going and I know it bores people to hear like, oh, that we're, oh, the 2020, we're putting a lot of energy and focus on the back into the business.

But the back into the business is the customer service side. It's a support. We all care just because we're converting at a high enough rate that we're making good money. And if we were to throttle down advertising, we would 3X, 5X the business. That's less important to us. It's more important to us, the people that are coming

into our ecosystem, the experience that they're getting. And how can we improve that and continue to enhance that process? Because those people are the people that you end up changing them forever. They become lifelong customers and billboards for you that go off and talk about you for five, 10, 15 years later. Totally.

And with that, go to mindpumpfree.com and download all of our resources, guides, and ebooks for free. Go check them out, mindpumpfree.com. You can also find all of us on Instagram. You can find Justin at MindPump Justin. You can find me at MindPumpSale and Adam at MindPumpFree.com, you can also find all of us on Instagram. You can find Justin at MindPump Justin, you can find me at MindPumpSale, and Adam at MindPumpAtom. Thank you for listening to MindPump.

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