AP 0467: Can I Have a Podcast with Two Formats?

AskPat 467 Episode Transcript

Pat Flynn: Hey, what's up everybody? Pat Flynn here, and welcome to Episode 467 of AskPat. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Today we have a great question from Ozzy, but before we get to his question let's talk about FreshBooks.com really quick, today's sponsor. They're an amazing company that is serving over 3 million small businesses, and they can help serve you too. They've helped me with organizing business finances, from the income that we have, the expenses, the invoicing… They just make it super easy to organize, keep track of everything. They have an award-winning mobile app so you can keep track on the go. More importantly, they make just everything so much easier to organize, because it's all done using their system. I mean, that's why they're billed, and that's why 3 million small businesses use them. It just makes it really easy come tax season, to see what's going on, to get quick snapshots of where you might need help in your finances, and all that stuff. If you want to check it out, don't be like me and wait too long. Use FreshBooks at GetFreshBooks.com. You can try it out for 30 days for free by going to GetFreshBooks.com and by entering “AskPat” in the “How did you hear about us?” Section. Again, that's GetFreshBooks.com, enter “AskPat.”

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

Ozzy: Hi, Pat. My name's Ozzy, and I'm from Glasgow here in the UK. Currently, I'm planning a weekly religious podcast, which I hope to launch in 2016. I have a whole bunch of ideas of really valuable content to push out there to my selected target market. In doing so, I realized that actually I have two different types of shows that I could potentially be putting out there under the same brand name, one of them, of course, being the longer 30-minute or one-hour discussions with potential interviewees. One other type of show, which I would call, “Friday Gems,” with shorter five-minute, kind of uplifting bursts of information, or inspirational quotes, because Friday is a very important day in our faith. I'm thinking, do I now post one episode every Friday, the shorter ones, but also have a dedicated day in the week for the longer one? Most importantly, can I actually have both under the same brand name? I know that AskPat is separate from the Smart Passive Income. This is kind of confusing me now as to how to go about doing this. I'd love your help. Thank you so much for everything you do. All the best.

Pat Flynn: Hey, what's up, Ozzy? Thank you so much for the question. Congratulations on the upcoming podcast. I'm really excited for you. I remember what it was like when I first started my podcast. It was both exciting, scary, overwhelming, but also just, I couldn't wait to get started. I know exactly how you feel. This is pretty cool: you've been able to really structure the different kinds of things you want to share on your podcast with your voice, and I think it's really cool that you've narrowed down even the length of times, and the days that you want to publish. I think that's—it's going to work definitely in your favor.

Now to your question, well, should you start two podcasts versus one? Let's talk a little bit about Smart Passive Income, and AskPat. AskPat was actually a part of SmartPassive Income. It wasn't called AskPat, but I did have people send in voicemail questions, and I would actually answer those questions at the end of the episodes that were about 45 minutes to an hour long on SmartPassiveIncome.com. It worked out great. A lot of people loved hearing people's questions; that was the feedback I got. But, I also got feedback saying, “Well, sometimes the questions didn't relate to what the episode was about; it kind of was just an afterthought.” Also it was just already, sometimes it was an hour long, and here it was another 15 minutes after that. It was too long. I decided to stop it, but then I had the idea to have it become its own show, and that's worked out very well too.

Now, I will say, it was such a struggle for me to get my first podcast up. Even with the knowledge that I had getting that first podcast up, the second podcast wasn't as push-button easy as I wanted it to be. I still knew how things worked, obviously much better than I did the first time, but it was still quite difficult to get it up, and to record everything that I wanted to record, and because it was separate I always felt like, “Well I don't know if I should be doing this or not,” and that sort of thing. I was kind of glad that I tested it out, and I validated the concept with my audience first. But then I decided to go and separate it into its own show, and it didn't go up as easy as I wanted it to, like I said, but I've gotten into a great rhythm now, especially having people come on board to help me, and it's been great. Obviously, it's five days a week, so it's a lot of work. But, we've been able to batch process the recording of these episodes, and also batch process the work flow, and the posting of them, and all those sorts of things.

Now, if I were in your shoes, Ozzy, here's what I would do. I would focus on one podcast first, your main one. Make it killer, understand exactly how it's going to go. After a week or two, after you start to build your audience after however many weeks, maybe after a month, I would introduce this concept of the Friday show. I would test it out on that same exact podcast. I would test it out, and have it be sort of a subsegment. You know when you listen to radio shows, sometimes there—maybe you don't listen to radio shows. But, sometimes when you're listening to some type of show, there's different segments within those shows, where people can look forward to a certain theme, or a topic, or whatever the case may be. You could do the same thing with your initial podcast. If I were you, I would launch that initial podcast, launch with a bang. You want to do those one at a time, because it's going to be a lot of work to put it together. If you had two podcasts going out at the same time, it might become a headache. You can always choose to bring it into its own podcast later, but start out with the main one first. Then I would introduce the concept of this Friday show, because you might put it out there and maybe it doesn't get as much bang for your buck as you thought it would, or you get some feedback to reshape it into something different later. You don't know, until you start doing it. I would do it, and actually, if you for example post on Tuesdays for your regular show once a week, then after a month you come out with a second episode on Friday, you could see what the downloads are like, you can ask people for feedback, and you can kind of see, engage whether or not people want that to become its own episode.

Here's the thing: it's going to count for more downloads for your main show. Even though it's a subsegment, I know a lot of people … I think Amy Porterfield did this, and a few other people. They come out with a regular show, and then they introduce a new topic, a new segment, and that becomes just a second episode during the week, but for that same show. People will know it's coming out on that particular day, which is good because you're creating consistency and a rhythm there that people can look forward to. At the same time, it also increases your downloads for that particular one show that you have, that main podcast that you have. The reason that's important is because if you're getting sponsors on board, that's great. It's also going to help with your rankings, and subscribership, and also your ratings, and that sort of thing, all in one show.

Yes, there will be some people who might not like one versus the other, but again, it's up to you. You could do whatever it is you like to do. Then you could see if you want to break it out later, you could do that. At that point, which would probably be several months down the road, you can then take advantage of the second time that you would get on the new and noteworthy list. When you publish a new podcast, you're in the “New and Noteworthy” section, and you want to maximize that effort in the first eight weeks that you have when your first podcast comes out. If you choose to go with a second podcast, you can utilize another eight weeks.

That would be the benefit of having a secondary podcast. Of course, people could subscribe just to that one if they want. The con is, if people want both, then they're going to have to subscribe to both, becomes another opportunity for people not to listen to you if they have to go to one, and then to the other. Also, the subscriber numbers would be down, the download numbers would be down, you'd have to combine them. I know from experience that when you try to introduce a second show, sponsors want to see bigger download numbers first before they start to work with you. If I were you, I'd come out with one show, really nail down that process. Then introduce on that same show, this Friday segment, and see how that runs out, and see if people enjoy it. Then you can make a decision whether or not it is something you should choose to be its own show or not.

There you go. Ozzy, I hope that helps you, it gives you some direction. I am really looking forward to hearing how you choose to work with this information, and what you do. Whatever the case may be, just get it done. You're almost there. If you need some help, head on over to PodcastingTutorial.com. That's where you can get more information to help you with your podcast, and we're almost at 2016. I wish you the best of luck, Ozzy. We're going to send you an AskPat t-shirt for having your question featured here on the show. Thank you so much for it.

For everybody whose submitted a question, thank you, because obviously this show wouldn't exist without you. It would be just Pat, not AskPat, and that would be kind of lame. Thank you for making AskPat what it is. If you have a question that you'd like potentially featured here on the show, just head on over to AskPat.com. You can ask right there on that page.

I also want to thank today's sponsor, which is FreshBooks.com, serving over 3 million small businesses with helping manage their finances. From expenses, to income, and invoicing. If you do any invoicing, if you do coaching, or consulting, or if you have students, FreshBooks is a great tool for you to invoice, and get paid. Which means you create these professional looking invoices that FreshBooks has, and you send your invoices via email to whoever you're teaching, or who your clients are. It just makes it really easy for you to get paid. That's obviously important, so that you can then focus on what you need to focus on for your business, and less on the headache of trying to get paid for these bills that you've sent out, or even just managing your finances in general. If you want to check out FreshBooks for free for 30 days, head on over to GetFreshBooks.com and enter “AskPat” in the “How did you hear about us?” section. Again, that's GetFreshBooks.com, enter “AskPat.”

Thank you so much. I appreciate you, and here's a quote to finish off the day by author and productivity expert David Allen, author of, Getting Things Done. He said, “Do it because your brain doesn't have a brain.” Now, what does that mean? Well he talks a lot about, in that book about strategies to help you with productivity, and getting over the procrastination, and all that sort of stuff. You have to implement those strategies because your brain doesn't have a brain, your brain doesn't know what it's doing, what it's not doing to potentially sabotage itself, or to make things slower than they should be. The reason productivity's important, and putting all these strategies into place, is because your brain doesn't have a brain on its own. You need to create these things for it to be able to utilize your brain for what it's good for. Cheers. Take care. I'll see you in the next episode of AskPat. Thanks so much, everyone.