by: AskPat 667 Episode Transcript
Pat Flynn: What's up? This is Pat Flynn, and welcome to Episode 667 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 sweet question from Eddie today, but before we get to Eddie's question, I do want to thank today's sponsor, which is Iubenda.com. If you own a website, or you're developing websites and apps for others, you need to be sure you have the right privacy policies in place. You usually see them at the bottom of the websites or one of the first things that pops up when you open an app, well the fact is this is the law, you have to have it this, so Iubenda takes the hassle out of trying to create one of your own. It takes just a minute or two to build your own privacy policy statement for your site or app. So go to Iubenda, that's I-U-B-E-N-D-A.com and create your own easy-to-read privacy policy today, Iubenda.com.
All right, now here's today's question from Eddie.
Eddie Lazzari: Hey, Pat. This is Eddie Lazzari here, the host of Change Your POV podcast. You inspired me to start my own podcast, and I actually used your free tutorial videos to set it all up and get all the techie stuff out of the way. And great videos, by the way, very self-explanatory, easy to follow, easy to execute, and got myself up and running. First, thank you for that.
My question today is to do with podcasting. So, I am several months into it now. I've got two shows a week and getting it to the 30s, 40 range in terms of episode count. Now I've got a better microphone now than I did when I first started, and I've also gotten much better, in my humble opinion, than when I first started. I've learned a little bit better techniques for interviewing guests and it's just all around a better show now than it was. Now I'm struggling with do I go back and rerecord some of my first episodes or do I leave them as is? Matter of fact my very first episode, I'm a perfectionist much like you. I don't know what it is in the blood of entrepreneurs, but we want everything to be perfect, and so I made a deal with myself that I would record my first episode and I would never listen to it again because I knew if I did, I would just go back and rerecord, rerecord, rerecord, I would never end up launching the podcast.
So I recorded the first episode, I uploaded it, and then I forgot about it, but I know there's a lot of information in there that I could do better. So what's your recommendation, should you just move forward and just forget about it, or should you go back and clean up some episodes and revamp them and do them better? Interested in what your thoughts are. Thanks, Pat.
Pat Flynn: Hey, Eddie. What's up? Thank you so much for the question. I appreciate it, and I appreciate the kind words about the podcasting tutorial. For those of you who are interested in starting your podcasting tutorial, you can use the same one that Eddie used to get started. It's completely free; I don't ask for e-mails or nothing. I just want to provide value to you and have you get your show up and running. You can find that at podcasting tutorial dot com. Again, totally free, and Eddie thanks again for the testimonial there.
Okay, so to answer your question. Well first of all, just great job. Episode 30 to 40—you're doing fantastic. Keep up the good work, for one. Secondly, I love this that you mentioned that you just don't listen to your first episode, that it's terrible, and that you just went for it. Because I recorded my first episode three times and after the second time I said, “You know what, I'm just going to screw it and go,” because I knew in the same reason that you did like if I had just kept trying to perfect it, it would never get done. So my first episode is probably just as bad, if not worse than your first episode and I haven't listened to it either, but you know what? I have kept it up there. The reason I've kept it up there is because it shows people that I've come a long way. That the show has progressed, that I started it and it wasn't good and then I've gotten better. I think people appreciate that. People love honesty, people love the human side of the people we listen to on podcasts, of course, and so I keep it there.
This is really funny, because yesterday's episode with Andrea, number 666, was about your blog content and how you can audit your blog and update some of your old stuff. Well for your podcast, I would do it a little differently because it's your voice, because there's improvement there and people notice that, I would leave it up there. But here's what I would do, I would rerecord the episode. You had said that the first episode has some really great information and you know now and have the techniques and the confidence to do it much better and to deliver it in a better way. That would probably provide a lot more value.
So here's what I would do. I would actually re-record that episode, mention that you're re-recording it and mention why, and publish it as a brand new podcast episode. I think people will appreciate that. I did the same thing. I had three episodes, episode 15, 16, and 17, which were your first steps for building passive income and exactly how to get started, or something like that. Or I think it was all the types of ways to generate a passive income and how to get started with each, and that was episode 15, 16, and 17, they're sort of a three-part series. Well those were for the longest time, I'd say three or four years, the first episodes I always told people to listen to because my episode one wasn't actually very valuable. It was like, “Hey guys here's what's coming,” so your episode one's probably a lot more valuable but 15, 16, and 17 were the first ones that I was like, “Hey guys this is where you start.” I rerecorded those recently in episode 192, 193, and in 194, and it was mostly the same content but I delivered it much better. Other content that was in those older episodes that were not relevant anymore I took out, but I just published it as a brand new podcast episode. And people who didn't hear that first one appreciated it, and people who heard those first ones appreciated it, too, because they got more updated information and they know that it's something that I know that it's important for them, so they're going to make sure they listen to it.
So that's what I would do, Eddie. I would rerecord your first episode, mention that in the beginning, and I think people are going to appreciate that you are conscious about the fact that you are making improvements, but also you know the stuff's valuable, you want to make sure it's delivered in the best way. So I wouldn't go back, I would keep going forward.
Eddie, thank you so much for the question. Keep up the great work, and I look forward to hearing how this all works out. We're going to send you an AskPat T-shirt for having your question featured here on the show. And for everybody else out there listening, if you have a question that you'd like potentially featured here on the show, all you have to do is head on over to askpat.com and you can ask right there on that page. Thank you so much and, again, that podcasting tutorial for those of you who want to check it out is at podcastingtutorial.com.
And as always, here's a quote to finish off the day by Helen Keller. She said, “Security is mostly a superstition. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” Take care, and I'll see you in the next episode of AskPat. Bye.