AP 0912: What Is the Key to Podcast Success?

AskPat 912 Episode Transcript

Pat Flynn: Hey, what's up everybody? Pat Flynn here, and welcome to Episode 912 of AskPat. Thank you so much for joining me today. As always, I'm here to help you by answering your online business questions, five days a week.

We have a great question today coming in from Win, but before we get to her question I do want to thank today's sponsor, which is ZipRecruiter. If you're hiring, do you know where to post your job to find the best candidate? Finding great talent can be very tough for your business. Thankfully, with ZipRecruiter, you can post your job to 100 plus job sites with just one click. In fact, over 80 percent of jobs posted on ZipRecruiter get qualified candidates coming in within 24 hours, which is really cool. So, here you go, find out today why ZipRecruiter has been used by businesses of all sizes to find the most qualified job candidates with immediate results. Right now you can get it for free. That's right, you can post jobs on ZipRecruiter for free. That's right, free. You got to ZipRecruiter.com/pat. Again, that's ZipRecruiter.com/pat, try it out for free, ZipRecruiter/pat.

All right, here's today's question from Win.

Win: Hi, Pat. It's Win, from Aspen. My question to you is, what do you think the key to success is on a podcast? Would it be download numbers, or would it be featured interviews? Again, this is Win, from Butterflies of Wisdom. Butterflies of Wisdom can be found on iTunes, or any podcast-catching app. Thank you. Bye.

Pat Flynn: Hey, Win. Thank you so much for the question today, it's interesting. This is actually a really great question. What do you think the key to success is on a podcast?

I think the key to success is first to determine what success means to you. People create podcasts for many different reasons. Some people create it because they have a business already and they want to build a deeper relationship with their audience. Perhaps they are a coach of some kind, or hire out their work, or do some consulting of some kind. Well, a podcast is an amazing way to build a relationship with people, and basically give them a taste of what they're going to get when they hire you. If you're looking for more clients or customers, it's a fantastic way to go about that. You can determine your success based on, for example, how many new customers you get and how many of them say they came as a result of your podcast. That's one way to go about it.

Another way to go about it is in terms of, like you said, those download numbers. You might have certain numbers that you want to reach. I would hesitate to have just numbers alone be a goal. You want the numbers to be a part of a formula that leads to something that's really important for you and your business, and a goal that you have. Numbers are one thing, in terms of download numbers. It's really inspiring to see people all around the world following you and listening to your show, and downloading your episodes, and subscribing and such, but it's even more encouraging to see how many people, for example, who listen to the show come and join your email list. I think email is really essential.

Again, email subscribers, just like download numbers, is a number that shares that just somebody wants a little bit more information from you. It's when a transaction happens that things start to fall into place, but an email is a transaction. People are giving you their email for something, and there are many ways to collect email addresses from a show. You can have people come back to your website for show notes and subscribe there, you can have them join a community, or you can actually have them download a freebie of some kind that relates to what it is that you do or a specific episode that you're creating. Those are some fantastic ways to grow your email list, and you can determine your success of a podcast or lead generation based on the number of emails you're collecting from your show.

Now, I know a lot of people who have had much success with podcasting, not necessarily because of the download numbers, or even the customers that they're getting as a result of it, but because like you said, the featured interviews that they've had. They've become successful through the association of the people that they've had on their show. There's many examples of this, too many to list, of people who have become experts as a result of getting experts on their show. You can also start to build a relationship with those experts. A lot of times those relationships lead to friendships, or other partnerships, or other business opportunities that would never have been possible if you'd never had that conversation with a person on the show. That's one of the benefits of starting a podcast, is it gives you an amazing platform and a place to give value back to somebody who's spending some time with you. So, an expert in your space, or an influencer who is coming on your show to share some wisdom, to potentially talk about their new book and stuff, that's time that you're spending with them, talking to them, time that you wouldn't normally be able to get if you just simply asked them, “Hey, can I talk to you for an hour?” “No.” But, “Hey, you want to come on my show and I'll feature your work on my podcast and share you with my audience?” Yeah, then that's a different conversation.

Success for a podcast varies. It depends on what your goals are. There is, of course, some of the more vanity things like rankings and stuff, like if you became number one in your category. That's pretty cool, and pretty successful, but just like an Amazon book, what does that really mean? People are gaming the system nowadays, so it's not about that. It's about the end results that matter to you. That's what success is for a podcast.

I will say that if you want to start a podcast . . . Actually, this is a great way to feature this episode, which was not unintentional, just so you know. Not unintentional to select this question, I'm just being honest there. Power-Up Podcasting just opened up this week, a course that I just created and opened up to the public for the first time where I hold your hand through the process of actually how to create your podcast, but not just how to create your podcast: How you deal with the tech, how to know what you're going to talk about, all those kinds of things. We go over techniques or best practices on how to use your equipment and all that stuff. All that stuff's in there, of course. That's the baseline stuff. What I feel like is unique about Power-Up Podcasting is it puts my expertise of launching, and marketing, and getting it in front of people into it as well. There's where I feel it differs from any of those other podcasting courses that may be out there already, which are great. I've seen them, and I know a number of people who have found success with them, but I know a lot of people—and this is by request actually, that this course was created—I know a lot of people prefer the Pat Flynn way of teaching, and this course will help you launch a podcast. That is its goal. If it doesn't do that, you will get your money back.

Thank you so much for allowing me to share that here. Win, thank you so much for your question as well. I can't wait to send you an AskPat teeshirt. I will say that I don't have your email address. It didn't come in with your question, so if you wanted to send me a personal email, Win, [email protected], we can get you that shirt, if you are listening to this. Again, thank you for your question, and hopefully this has been helpful for people. Also, if you have a question like Win's that you want to ask on this show, and you want to get featured, potentially, all you have to do is go to AskPat.com and you can ask right there on that page.

As always, I love to end with a quote. Today's quote is from Charles Schulz, and that is, “What's the good of living if you don't try a few things?” Like I said, if you want to try a podcast: PowerUpPodcasting.com. You can also sign up for a two-day workshop if you're not into courses and you'd much rather fly to San Diego and hang out with me for a couple days, and a few other people who are in the beginning stages of their podcast life. You'll see information about the workshop there as well. Again, PowerUpPodcasting.com. Check it out.

Thanks guys, take care, and I'll see you the next episode. Bye.