by: AskPat 694 Episode Transcript
Pat Flynn: What's up everybody? Pat Flynn here and welcome to Episode 694 of AskPat. Thank you so much for joining me today and we're approaching Episode 700. How crazy is that?
All right, now here's today's question from Gerald.
Gerald: Hey Pat. This is Gerald with CargoBikeLane.com and I have been a big fan trying to really put some of the knowledge that I've gained over the years into practical application. I'm re-establishing a blog which will ultimately become a niche site for a specific area in the cycling world. One of the things I'm thinking of down the road is doing a podcast, but what I'm finding is that there are no good podcasts that are lasting for any length of time.
I'm wondering why that might be? There are Facebook pages with two to ten thousand members in them. Communities around particular niches of cycling. There's obviously tons of products out there and services, but no good podcasts seem to last for any length of time. Would love to get your thoughts on why that might be. Secondly, what I can do based on what I'm seeing out there with what's failed or has been abandoned, what I might do to create a quality, ongoing podcast.
Pat, thank you very much for your time. Look forward to hearing from you.
Pat Flynn: Hey Gerald. Thanks so much for the question. Appreciate the kind words. Why are podcasts out there not lasting? Well, there's a number of different reasons for that. For one, and this is probably the biggest one, a lot of people don't know what they're getting themselves into. Quite honestly, podcasting is pretty difficult. A lot more people are podcasting these days, which a lot of people see and they say to themselves, oh, I can do the same thing.
There's a lot of great tutorials out there on getting started. I have one. It's at PodcastingTutorial.com. It's helped thousands of people start. But you'll notice that on that page, the number one thing I say at the beginning is in order to succeed as a podcaster, you must do one thing and that is commit. Commit. Commit.
You must commit because there's nothing worse than going into a podcast search engine and looking up for a podcast on something that you're really interested in and finding a podcast that's not active anymore. What happened? Do you think you can trust a person who has started a show and was talking about something and then just disappeared off the face of the earth? I don't think people are going to be like, hmm, maybe he's blogging now or maybe he's into YouTube. They're not going to do that.
Consistency with your podcast is extremely, extremely important. It doesn't have to be everyday like AskPat. My other show is every week and it started actually every other week. As long as you set that expectation and you meet that expectation, or exceed it, then you're setting yourself up for success. Obviously there's a lot more to that.
You have to deliver great, unique, valuable content. You have to get great guests on your show if you are indeed doing an interview type show. I think there's a great opportunity for you, Gerald. If you really want to own this space you got to commit and put the systems in place to make it happen. I think that's another reason why a lot of people quit is because they are overwhelmed with the entire process. It's not that easy.
If you go to that PodcastingTutorial.com page, again that's free for everybody. No emails required or nothing. You'll see that that's actually quite an extensive blog post. It's not a click this button and start recording. This is six videos that are twelve minutes each that walk you through the process of how to start a podcast. It's a very overwhelming process as you go through.
I even almost quit myself several times in the first year of my podcast. I almost quit like four or five times because I got to a point where after every episode I was like, man, I gotta record another one of these next week? This is getting crazy. And I wasn't seeing results like I wanted too, but eventually over time things started to exponentially grow. I've had massive success with it as so many other people have, too.
So, a lot of people aren't lasting because they're not getting into something that they think they're getting into. They might not be getting the results that they want quick enough.
Gerald, if you wanted to just take the step, reach out to those people who do have podcasts. Typically there's, on the iTunes page at least, a link to a website that you can go to for each of those different podcasts. Go to their contact form and be like, “Hey, I noticed you had a podcast about this and you don't anymore. What happened?”
You're probably going to get some answers back and you might find that life got in the way or I just got bored of it or I couldn't keep up with it anymore. Those are direct quotes that you could use to motivate yourself to make sure that you do create something that is worth it.
The last thing I would mention, Gerald, is to try to create some sort of goal. Make sure that you're doing this for a reason. Don't just do a podcast because other people are doing it or because other people aren't doing it. Do it because it's going to be something that's going to be worth it for you and your business.
What's the purpose? Are you going to be connecting with influencers and building those relationships, which is a great benefit of podcasting that a lot of people don't even consider. You could also use the podcast to build authority and gain expertise. You could use it directly as a lead magnet tool or a way for you to get more email subscribers. Think of why you're doing this not just do it to do it, but why you're doing it, too, Gerald.
I want to wish you all the best of luck and keep me posted because I'm really interested to see what you do with this information and this opportunity that you have in front of you. Take care and I want to send you an AskPat t-shirt for having your question featured here on the show.
For those of you listening, if you have a question that you'd like potentially featured here on the show just like Gerald's, go to Askpat.com It's really quick, really easy.
As always, I like to finish off with a quote. To finish off this week with a quote, this is from Indra Nooyi who is the CEO of PepsiCo. She said, “Just because you are CEO, don't think you have landed. You must continually increase your learning, the way you think, and the way you approach the organization.”
I've never forgotten that … I'll never forget you guys, too, because you guys are awesome. Thank you so much. I appreciate you and if you had a moment to help me out, you can pay me back if you enjoyed all this information that I've been giving you over the last couple weeks. Go to iTunes and leave a review for AskPat.
There's significantly less reviews for this show than my other show. So, if you have an opportunity, just go to iTunes, type in AskPat, leave an anonymous review whenever you have the time. I appreciate it. Thank you so much and I look forward to serving you in next week's batch of episodes.
‘Til then, take care and have a great weekend. Bye, everybody.