Today on episode number 949 of The School of
Speaker:Podcasting, I've been dying to do this interview. The one and
Speaker:only Tom Webster talking about his book, The
Speaker:Audience is Listening, a little guide to building a
Speaker:big podcast. And I also ask him a little bit about
Speaker:brand safety. Let's start the show. The School of
Speaker:Podcasting with Dave Jackson.
Speaker:Podcasting Sense 2,005. I am your
Speaker:award winning hall of fame podcast coach, Dave Jackson, thanking
Speaker:you so much for tuning in. If you're new to the show,
Speaker:this is where we help you plan, launch, and grow your
Speaker:podcast. Wanna monetize it? Yeah. We can do that too.
Speaker:Everything is out at our website, school of podcasting.com.
Speaker:Use the coupon code listener when you sign up for either a
Speaker:monthly or yearly subscription. And, of course, that comes with
Speaker:a 30 day money back guarantee.
Speaker:There is a new service online that I'll be
Speaker:telling you about a little later. A lot of people think, I don't
Speaker:know, it's the bee's knees. And I'm here to say, you gotta
Speaker:be careful with it. But right now, here's my talk with Tom
Speaker:Webster. I've said the audience is
Speaker:listening about, I don't know, 10, 12 times on my show. It really is
Speaker:required reading. If you're a member of the school of podcasting, it's it's one of
Speaker:those books that's like, go ahead and read it. If you don't like it, I
Speaker:will buy it back because I will give it to somebody else. It's really that
Speaker:good of a book. And so, I'm very happy to have the one and
Speaker:only from Sounds Profitable and many other things in podcasting. The one
Speaker:and only Tom Webster. Tom, thanks for coming on the show. Dave, you're you're so
Speaker:kind, and you've been so kind to mention the book as as much as you
Speaker:have, really. That's, maybe maybe more than you should excessively. So
Speaker:thank you for that. Writing a book is a lot of
Speaker:work. I know I've got my book. I'm working on the audio version.
Speaker:So what inspired Tom to write this book? Because
Speaker:it's really, really good book. I'm so grateful for that,
Speaker:David. You know, I wrote this book because I have all this weird experience,
Speaker:and I didn't want it to you know, when I eventually retire to podcast
Speaker:island or on the on whatever, you
Speaker:know, floating device that podcasting has enabled me to buy, I didn't want
Speaker:this knowledge to kind of disappear. And and it really it comes from a
Speaker:a, you know, background in in media research, a background in radio, a background
Speaker:in entertainment, and all these other things. And, you know, I've had
Speaker:the privilege in a 30 year career of being able to
Speaker:work, you know, sort of behind the scenes on audience development for some pretty
Speaker:pretty big shows, both in podcasting but also in radio. I've done
Speaker:research on The Howard Stern Show. I've done research for, you know, Elvis Duran, who's
Speaker:a very big syndicated morning show host across America, and
Speaker:and what struck me was how much of the,
Speaker:you know, literature material, helpful advice that's out there for
Speaker:podcasting about the mechanics of doing a
Speaker:podcast, right, the equipment and
Speaker:formats and things like that, but not enough about how to understand
Speaker:an audience. And I wanted to do the best I could to kind of
Speaker:correct that balance because I can guarantee you, you know, when Elvis
Speaker:Duran steps into the studio or or Ira Glass steps into his
Speaker:closet to record with a blanket over his head or whatever, He's not
Speaker:thinking about the equipment, you know, or what
Speaker:platform he's going to they're gonna record on. That's not what they're thinking about. They're
Speaker:thinking about their audience, and I wanted to put the focus squarely on that. So
Speaker:for the brand new podcaster, what would be your advice? For
Speaker:the brand new person, I would get very, very clear on
Speaker:who you're for. Right? And it's not I want to talk about
Speaker:this. You don't get the benefit of that unless you're already John
Speaker:Grisham, and you're writing your 68th book. I wanna write a book
Speaker:about Christmas. Okay. We're gonna give you a pass because of the
Speaker:Pelican Brief or whatever. You don't you don't get that pass necessarily. So before
Speaker:you get to, I have an idea and I want to write about this, the
Speaker:thing you want to do is not necessarily the thing people want to hear. And
Speaker:that's not to discourage you from making your art. But I do think you
Speaker:need to be very clear on, alright, if I'm going to do this, who is
Speaker:it for? And the answer is not men 25 to
Speaker:54 because men 25 to 54 have very little in
Speaker:common with each other. You have to get a lot more specific than that. Can
Speaker:you imagine the exact human name, rank,
Speaker:serial number, maybe somebody in your life that you're making this show for,
Speaker:and then make that show. Right? Make a show for that
Speaker:human, that individual single human. Make 6 or 7 of
Speaker:them, put them under your bed, and think about it for a while. And I
Speaker:think, you you know, this culture with the this sort of cult of
Speaker:entrepreneurialism and and things like that and the, you know, all the things that we
Speaker:tell ourselves about you know, the Jeff Bezos's of the world and
Speaker:the Elon Musks and the Richard Branson's and the Steve Jobs's and all
Speaker:that. Well, they're outlier humans. They have been
Speaker:able to win by ignoring popular opinion and just moving forward.
Speaker:Most of people are not gonna have that, and I think it's
Speaker:not enough to to just ship it, to just
Speaker:iterate in public because you are producing an entertainment that people will
Speaker:give exactly one shot. I always recommend do a bunch of
Speaker:shows, stick them under your bed, go back to them later. Could they
Speaker:have been better? If the answer is yes, then make them better.
Speaker:From the get go, I just wouldn't release something that you're not proud
Speaker:of. Could you can release something that you know could be better as your skills
Speaker:get better. But if you could have fixed it yourself, maybe
Speaker:do that before you release it because it there's just you know, your
Speaker:competition isn't another Cubs podcast. Your competition is Netflix. Your
Speaker:competition is, you know, the new David Gilmore album. Your
Speaker:competition could be silence. And so when you're first starting
Speaker:out, one of the things that can make your show
Speaker:set apart from other brand new shows is, as Tom said,
Speaker:think about it a little bit. Let it sit under the bed. Get some feedback.
Speaker:And then one of the big chapters in the book is
Speaker:all about editing. There's 3 levels of editing, I
Speaker:think. I you know, level 1 is I don't edit at all
Speaker:because I'm authentic. Well, authenticity,
Speaker:yeah, authenticity means different things to different people. If I'm being authentic,
Speaker:it's that I want to present the very best side of myself and
Speaker:my ideas for my audience so that they will be understood in the
Speaker:way that I want them to be understood. And for me not to do that
Speaker:is to be inauthentic. So yeah. But, you know, I think, you know,
Speaker:level 0 is no editing at all. Level 1 is where I think a lot
Speaker:of podcasters are at, and that is, you know, let's remove the cough noises
Speaker:and the ums and the ahs and someone stumbled and said, can you back up
Speaker:and all that? And that's sort of hygiene level editing. And sometimes your podcast
Speaker:needs a podoscopy. But advanced editing is this.
Speaker:And I think, really, the podoscopy that I talk about
Speaker:is a very careful and detailed listening
Speaker:back to one of your shows and getting it completely
Speaker:human transcribed. Every every
Speaker:every hiccup, get it completely transcribed. Read through it and take a
Speaker:red pen to it. Circle paragraphs and say, you know what? That should have been
Speaker:before this paragraph. This would have been explained so much
Speaker:better if I'd have asked this first. Well, you can do that in
Speaker:editing because the job is to create an entertainment. It's to
Speaker:create a narrative arc. It's to create something that from start to finish
Speaker:answers the next question that the listener had, and you have the opportunity to
Speaker:do that with editing. That's a lot of work for people. A lot of people
Speaker:are gonna say, I don't have the time to do that. I don't have the
Speaker:desire to do that or whatever, and that's totally fine. Don't do it. But
Speaker:it is the path to a larger audience. That's you know, make no question about
Speaker:it, is doing the is doing that work. And it's funny how everybody
Speaker:says, oh, my content is fine. I saw someone in a
Speaker:Facebook group saying, hey. How can I grow my audience? And,
Speaker:look, we all start wherever we start. But I listened to the
Speaker:show, and the first two minutes was the one cohost was
Speaker:complaining they had a cold and they had a sore throat, and then
Speaker:the other, cohost went into some other tale.
Speaker:And I look. I'm no prude. They dropped a bunch of f
Speaker:bombs that made, some adult jokes that weren't exactly funny, but that
Speaker:was the first five minutes of the show, and that's one of the
Speaker:areas that Tom feels a lot of people just blow it. The first
Speaker:5 minutes of a podcast. And I think podcasters of all
Speaker:sizes are guilty of a lot of throat clearing in those 5 minutes.
Speaker:And that's not how a great TV show that you watch starts.
Speaker:That's not how a great movie that you enjoy starts. It doesn't start with the
Speaker:actors talking about what they had for dinner last night. Alright. Now let's get into
Speaker:the script. That doesn't happen. And equally with the largest
Speaker:podcasters, nothing irritates me more than, you know and I'll
Speaker:I'll throw one out here. I listened to the Bill Simmons podcast, and
Speaker:the first 4 to 5 minutes of it are ads. Well, your favorite
Speaker:TV show doesn't do that. Your favorite TV show starts with content. It
Speaker:starts with hook, then some ads. It does not start
Speaker:immediately with the thing you absolutely did not tune in for, whether that's
Speaker:an ad or extraneous content that isn't your topic. And it's
Speaker:people's time is so valuable that it just it it it
Speaker:literally pains me when I hear podcasters of any size waste
Speaker:it. For me, Conan O'Brien, I like many of the
Speaker:guests he has on his show. I think he does good interviews, but I
Speaker:have to skip 7 minutes. And sometimes that's not
Speaker:enough to actually get to the interview. And you can't
Speaker:use those big shows as examples for stuff like that. Like, you know, if you
Speaker:type well well, Conan O'Brien does it. Okay. Step 1, already
Speaker:be Conan O'Brien. Yeah. That's gonna take a little while
Speaker:to do. Now the last thing, if we think about this, we
Speaker:have put a couple episodes under the bed. We let them
Speaker:sit, then we got them out. We did a little podoscopy on
Speaker:them. How do we know when we're done? How do we
Speaker:know when it's good enough? Yeah.
Speaker:That's a that's a really, really good question. I mean, I I think for that,
Speaker:you know, you really do need to get some advice. And, you know, look,
Speaker:writers workshops stuff all the time. You know, there are all kinds of
Speaker:systems and applications and and methods out there for writers workshops, and I'm a big
Speaker:fan of podcast workshops. I think getting their opinion in workshops, and I'm a big
Speaker:fan of podcast workshops. I think getting their opinion and their input into the process
Speaker:as much as you possibly can is going to make it better. And,
Speaker:again, that doesn't mean that you are giving up your vision or your road map.
Speaker:And as a lifelong media researcher,
Speaker:I think research is often blamed for things that it doesn't do. I think what
Speaker:asking for people's opinions even at the basic level of, quote, unquote,
Speaker:research, it at least gives you the guardrails of
Speaker:what not to do. Don't turn that far to the right. Don't turn that
Speaker:far to the left. But in between those rails, that's where you can make your
Speaker:art. And I think knowing both of those things is super valuable. If you wanna
Speaker:get the book, I'll have a link in the show notes. Go out to school
Speaker:of podcasting.com/949, or just visit
Speaker:Tom's website for the book, audience is listening book.com.
Speaker:But before he left, I had a couple things I wanted to ask Tom that
Speaker:he kinda threw out there. He worked with Howard Stern. I was dying to know
Speaker:what he did for The Howard Stern Show. I was studying the audience, and I
Speaker:was you know, a lot of it was Howard has always created
Speaker:controversy, and a lot of it was how wide are those
Speaker:feelings? Is this a a noisy minority,
Speaker:or is he really screwing up? And that was the thing that, you know, syndicators
Speaker:and and local affiliates really wanted to know. And, you know,
Speaker:I can tell you that the, you know, the FCC investigates
Speaker:when for for AM FM radio. The FCC investigates every single
Speaker:complaint as if it were a a bomb being dropped. And
Speaker:I think over, one stretch of time, there were something like 233
Speaker:complaints against Howard Stern, and 200 of them were from the
Speaker:same person. And so it looks like it's like shark attack. If you
Speaker:if if there's 2 shark attacks at a beach, then don't go to that beach.
Speaker:It's a shark beach. Yeah. Okay. But, you know, the thing about Howard
Speaker:and why Howard has been and continues to be so successful, you know,
Speaker:his notoriety may be around controversial things that have been
Speaker:said. Howard Stern is one of the 2 or 3 best interviewers on the
Speaker:planet. He has the ability to immediately disarm a
Speaker:guest and immediately get them to share things that they never would
Speaker:have dreamed they would have been sharing in an interview show, and that's a gift,
Speaker:and that's genius, and that's skill. And since Tom works in what I
Speaker:call the advertising bubble, right, there are different bubbles in podcasting,
Speaker:and Tom works with these big agencies and giant shows
Speaker:around the advertising market. And so I wanted to ask
Speaker:him because so many advertisers are worried
Speaker:about buying advertising and podcasting because somebody might say booger,
Speaker:to quote WKRP. And so why can't a podcaster
Speaker:at the beginning of his episode just say, hey. The following views and
Speaker:opinions are not necessarily, those that are shared by their
Speaker:sponsors, and here was his answer. What you are establishing here is
Speaker:not a legal precedent. You are acting in the court of public opinion.
Speaker:And I think I'll I'll say this about brand safety and brand suitability because I
Speaker:hear it a lot from our partners. We have many of our content producing partners
Speaker:who who produce true crime content. And they hear from
Speaker:advertisers, I don't want my brand associated with murder. Right? I don't want,
Speaker:you know, murder brought to you by Toyota. Toyota, drive to your
Speaker:murder. That, I think, is dramatically overstated
Speaker:unfairly in podcasting because those same advertisers, you
Speaker:know, watch any network news broadcast, watch any, you
Speaker:know, either police procedural show like, you know, NCIS
Speaker:or Law and Order or things like Dateline NBC or, you know, any kind
Speaker:of true crime thing on TV. They're brought to you by insurance companies and
Speaker:pharmaceuticals and financial services. They don't seem to have those issues on TV.
Speaker:You know, I think that that those things are more a function of
Speaker:skeptical buying public than any specific
Speaker:objection to to to questionable content. Merely giving a
Speaker:disclaimer does not let you off the hook. And then he let me know
Speaker:one thing that's going on inside of ad agencies. Here's the
Speaker:thing, Dave. The number one goal of 99%
Speaker:of media buyers, brand teams at agencies, and so on, they have they
Speaker:all share the same goal. So don't get fired. And one of the reasons why
Speaker:this book is so good, yes, Tom works with big agencies.
Speaker:However, never forget You know, I may earn a living
Speaker:by partnering with, you know, with big podcasting. Right? With the larger
Speaker:networks and things that are our partners, it sounds profitable. But, you know, my
Speaker:feet are also squarely with the indies. I've been a podcaster myself since the
Speaker:mid 2000. And some of the things that I talk about there
Speaker:are lessons for big and small. And that's what makes the book
Speaker:great. Again, the website for the book, audience
Speaker:is listening book.com. I'll have links in the show notes.
Speaker:Thanks, Tom, for coming on the show. I deeply appreciate it. Dave, an honor. You're
Speaker:a legend. Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker:Couple things that really stood out from this is
Speaker:I don't think I'm that crazy when it comes to editing. I really do just
Speaker:kinda level 1 stuff. The thing I noticed if you notice, we started
Speaker:off with me kinda live with Tom, and then I switched
Speaker:formats. Can you do that? Hey. It's my show. Yeah. I switched to a
Speaker:narrative style podcast. You know why? It wasn't a bad
Speaker:interview, but I I've known Tom over the years,
Speaker:and I kept just saying something and not asking
Speaker:a question. And so I went in and listened
Speaker:to some of the questions I did ask and listened to the answer. One of
Speaker:the questions you didn't hear was, how long ago did you write the
Speaker:book? Because does it matter? Like, would you buy the book if it
Speaker:was a year old versus 4 years old? No. I'm telling you right now,
Speaker:it's a really good book. So I took that out. And when
Speaker:it comes to the opening of your show, I love the
Speaker:line from my cohost of the podcast
Speaker:review show, Eric k Johnson. You can find it at podcasttalentcoach.com.
Speaker:He says nobody's getting on a bus without knowing where it's
Speaker:going. And so the intro of your show
Speaker:should be welcome to the blah blah show and explain what that's
Speaker:about. So welcome to the School of Podcasting where I help you plan, launch,
Speaker:grow, and if you want to monetize your show. And then
Speaker:explain what today's show is about, today's episode is about,
Speaker:and then get to that as quickly as possible. That's really
Speaker:it's not that hard of a recipe.
Speaker:And Tom calls it throat clearing where we're just like,
Speaker:I'm getting ready to get ready. And I loved his point
Speaker:about you don't see that on TV. You kinda see
Speaker:it in movies. And what I mean by that is I am one of
Speaker:the weird people that when I do go to the movies, and I don't go
Speaker:that often, I I go to see the trailers.
Speaker:But he's saying when the movie starts, you don't see
Speaker:them chit chatting. And I always say, put the
Speaker:chitchat. Hey. What you've been up to there, squirmy?
Speaker:Oh, well, you know, Nobles, I've been doing
Speaker:this. Well, put that at the end where your superfans are still
Speaker:listening. You really only have a
Speaker:chance to make a you know, to get your hooks into them to where they
Speaker:go, well, I wanna hear more at the beginning.
Speaker:And it is kinda sad that there are apps. I'm right now
Speaker:playing with Podcast Guru, and this might be
Speaker:the app because it's got my favorite, which is a smart
Speaker:playlist, where I can say, hey. When there's a new episode
Speaker:from this health related show, put it in my health playlist.
Speaker:I can have it download stuff. I can program what
Speaker:speed I wanna listen to at, and it has the whole podcasting 2 point o
Speaker:streaming thing. Although, I will say that right now, the
Speaker:streaming satoshi things is kind of on pause unless you're using
Speaker:truefans.fmorfountain.fm.
Speaker:And so the feature
Speaker:that more and more apps are putting in, Overcast,
Speaker:Podurama, and now Podcast Guru, they make it
Speaker:so that when you hit play on a podcast, you can skip Truefans,
Speaker:by the way, truefans.fm. You can skip x amount of minutes
Speaker:to get to the meat and potatoes. And I just
Speaker:don't think that's the way to hook somebody in
Speaker:by bombarding them with stories about your cat and
Speaker:advertising. Think of your title of your
Speaker:episode as a promise and get to that as soon
Speaker:as possible. If you wanna hear more about this, I
Speaker:do have a show. Yeah. I only do it when people pay me
Speaker:for it. It's at podcast rodeo show dot com where I grab
Speaker:a podcast and see how long I can hang on, and you will hear
Speaker:people blow their first impression over and over
Speaker:and over. Now if you I do have multiple ways. If you're looking for
Speaker:feedback, I've got multiple ways of doing it. There's the
Speaker:podcast rodeo show. There's the podcast hot seat.
Speaker:That's where you get a free month at The School of Podcasting when you
Speaker:order basically me to look at your episode and your
Speaker:website and give you feedback. And while you're at The School of Podcasting,
Speaker:you get unlimited consulting. Now if you want
Speaker:more than one opinion and what an opinion it is, you can have
Speaker:myself and Eric k Johnson, who I mentioned earlier, the podcast talent
Speaker:coach. We do a show called the podcast review show, where, again, we
Speaker:look over an episode, and we look over your
Speaker:website. We bring you on live to kinda go over
Speaker:what you were thinking, what's the the brand vision
Speaker:of your show, and kinda help you polish it up a little bit. So
Speaker:if you're looking for feedback on your show, we've got you
Speaker:covered. And over the almost 20 years now that
Speaker:I've been podcasting, I notice 2 things that
Speaker:go hand in hand. A person says, I'm trying to
Speaker:grow my audience. And when you ask them, did you get someone not
Speaker:named mom or somebody that you're not related to to listen
Speaker:to your show and give you constructive feedback? The answer is
Speaker:always, oh, no. I don't think
Speaker:that's a coincidence. I really don't. And that's something
Speaker:you might want to consider even if you've been doing it for
Speaker:4 years. I see a lot of low hanging fruit. Now another
Speaker:mistake I'm gonna tell you about right after this.
Speaker:When you are talking about a service you use so
Speaker:let's say you're using Patreon. You shouldn't be
Speaker:telling people, oh, go to patreon.com/davejackson.
Speaker:You should be saying go to ask the podcast coach.com/awesome.
Speaker:Why? Because I control that website.
Speaker:And one of the things that when you first launch your
Speaker:podcast, you wanna put links to
Speaker:your show on places like Apple and Spotify
Speaker:and Amazon and such. And there have been a
Speaker:number of websites that have popped up. And one right now is
Speaker:getting a a fair amount of people talking about, and that is episodes.fm.
Speaker:It's a handy site. Nathan is the guy behind it.
Speaker:And you can go there, search for your show, and it will give you
Speaker:links to your show on Apple and Spotify and about
Speaker:50 other websites. Now what I don't wanna hear people
Speaker:do well, it's your show, but I wouldn't do this. Episodes.fms/whatever.
Speaker:School of podcasting. Because right now, episodes.fm
Speaker:is not charging anything. And I have noticed, again, in my
Speaker:years of doing this, that free is not a good business model.
Speaker:So if you're going to do that, do your
Speaker:website.com/follow, which is what I do,
Speaker:except I point to Podgagement. And then the other
Speaker:thing I do is I have a page, school of
Speaker:podcasting.com/subscribe. And that's typically what I
Speaker:recommend. You want that page on your
Speaker:website or a domain that you
Speaker:control. Because if you were to
Speaker:share school of podcasting.com/follow,
Speaker:I really don't get any Google juice from that because it just says, oh,
Speaker:that website's really over there on Podgagement. So I'm not
Speaker:getting any SEO from that. So I always recommend putting the
Speaker:links on your website, have it some sort of easy
Speaker:to remember address like slash follow.
Speaker:And now that I work for PodPage, I
Speaker:wanna point out something else that I went, oh, you might wanna pay attention to
Speaker:that. Because with PodPage, you can go into settings
Speaker:and then go into I believe it's podcast player links or
Speaker:something of that nature. And you can put the link
Speaker:to your show on Apple and Spotify, and it does exactly what I
Speaker:just said. It actually makes a slash follow page, and it's on your
Speaker:website. So it reinforces your brand,
Speaker:and it makes it super easy for people to listen on whatever platform.
Speaker:But then you're like, ah, I gotta go get the link to my show on
Speaker:Spotify, which isn't hard for the record. You search for your show,
Speaker:hope that you can find it, and then there's a the 3 little buttons
Speaker:that you see, you know, the 3 little dots. You click on those and copy
Speaker:the show link, put it into your website, and there you
Speaker:go. Well, you might go, oh, you know what? I can just get my links
Speaker:from this episodes.fm place. And that sure looks
Speaker:like you could. But here's the thing. When you search for
Speaker:your show and you find it, the
Speaker:link you are actually top, copying and this is
Speaker:not a, you know, sinister thing
Speaker:that the owner of episodes.fm is doing.
Speaker:But when you go there, you type in your show like, oh, there's all my
Speaker:links. Well, here's the thing. The link to my show on Apple
Speaker:from episodes.hafem is episodes.fm/launch,
Speaker:question mark show equals ID, which is my Apple
Speaker:ID, 8365-8679, whatever it
Speaker:is, at platform equals Apple, which will work
Speaker:as long as episodes.fm, a
Speaker:free service, is around. So
Speaker:if you wanna use episodes.fm, a, it is super
Speaker:simple. However, I would
Speaker:say find the links yourself, put them on your
Speaker:website to help reinforce your brand, and
Speaker:boost your SEO. Now, like I said, I use school of
Speaker:podcasting.com/follow to point people at
Speaker:my Podgagemens, site with the links there. At
Speaker:least that's a, you know, URL that I own.
Speaker:I am not getting any SEO from that. So make up your
Speaker:mind which one you want. There are multiple ways of doing it. You could point
Speaker:people at, you know, any of these sites. Their Podlink was another
Speaker:one back in the day. You can use those. Just realize
Speaker:you're sneezing away your SEO. And like I said, you want to
Speaker:get links that are the link to those platforms,
Speaker:not something in the middleman. Another
Speaker:service I've talked about with not a lot of, well, I
Speaker:just didn't like it, is Listen Notes. And
Speaker:somebody brought up a point, and I went, well, yeah, that
Speaker:does become something you could use it for. So I've somewhat
Speaker:changed my opinion on it. I'll explain why right after
Speaker:this. The school of podcasting.
Speaker:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Alright. The following is just an opinion.
Speaker:But if you're talking to someone and they go, well, I'm a top
Speaker:0.5% podcaster at
Speaker:listen notes. And if you're new to the show, the reason why that's
Speaker:kinda bunk is Listen Notes compares you
Speaker:to 100 of thousands of podcasts.
Speaker:Many of them like, congratulations. You're beating that show about
Speaker:Tiger King from 2020. Yeah. I hope so. My
Speaker:buddy, Steve Stewart, had a show that was ranking, I believe, in the
Speaker:top 5 or 10%, and he hadn't put out an episode
Speaker:in 7 years. So if someone, in my opinion,
Speaker:quotes their listen notes stats as a way
Speaker:to validate their,
Speaker:I don't know, podcastness. I think I'm gonna make up a word there. I
Speaker:think that's bunk, for lack of a better phrase. It's just like, okay.
Speaker:Congratulations. You've you've beaten something, you know, that show
Speaker:from 2,011 about whatever.
Speaker:Yeah. Congrats on that. So that's I've I've always kind of
Speaker:cringed. I I actually have friends that do that. I'm like, because to
Speaker:me, they know that. If if they're worth
Speaker:their weight in in podcasting consulting, they should know
Speaker:that status is bunk. It's
Speaker:and yet if they still use it, that means either a, they're just gonna use
Speaker:it because it's marketing. And, you know, marketing's kinda lying or
Speaker:or just kinda politely pulling the wool over people's eyes.
Speaker:And I'm like, I nope. Sorry. But
Speaker:somebody did go, couldn't you use listen notes for this?
Speaker:Then I went, well, yeah, you could. So what
Speaker:is that? And I still think this is not a a great idea, but
Speaker:I I've switched my opinion on well, yep. You could use listen notes
Speaker:for that. And these are people that are trying to get booked
Speaker:on big shows. I wanna get booked on the top shows of
Speaker:podcasting and, you know, money will fall from heaven.
Speaker:Yeah. Okay. So even though the way they rate
Speaker:shows is is flawed, It
Speaker:is consistent. So if you wanted to see
Speaker:what the biggest shows were in your field,
Speaker:you could use that. Just realize that I
Speaker:would not put in my marketing materials, I've
Speaker:appeared on a top 0.5% podcast, etcetera,
Speaker:such as such and such because there are people that know that
Speaker:stat is, like, not good. And you're gonna end up being
Speaker:kind of a millivanilli kinda way where all of a sudden, everybody's gonna find out
Speaker:and go, oh. Now that's just my opinion,
Speaker:but I've seen it happen before. And so I guess
Speaker:if you really want to see the top shows now you could also go to
Speaker:Chartable and search the charts that way. You could go to
Speaker:Apple and search the charts there. But I I think you're
Speaker:missing one of the key points of being on
Speaker:shows. It's not about being on the big shows. It's
Speaker:about being on the right show because you could be on
Speaker:a top 200 show about beans,
Speaker:but your show is about motocross. And,
Speaker:sure, some motocross people may eat beans,
Speaker:but wouldn't it be better to be on a show about, I don't know, motocross?
Speaker:So that's my thought on listen notes. And
Speaker:since I somewhat almost went, yeah, I guess that
Speaker:would work, I thought I would share. I'm always open to suggestions
Speaker:and ideas just because I expressed an opinion that's based on
Speaker:the facts and the
Speaker:actions and results that I see in the podcasting
Speaker:space, and I might be missing something. So I'm always open
Speaker:for new input. The school of
Speaker:podcasting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Last little thing I
Speaker:wanted to throw in here and as I mentioned earlier, I'm all about
Speaker:feedback. And I got some feedback from my buddy Ralph
Speaker:over at ask ralphpodcast.com. If you're looking for a show
Speaker:about finance from a Christian point of view, check him out at askraufpodcast.com,
Speaker:and he was listening to the show I do called Ask the
Speaker:Podcast Coach. And we were getting, I would I
Speaker:that's a show I do crowdfunding. I do I have a, an account
Speaker:at Supercast. I used to use Patreon.
Speaker:And while I'm doing it live, people are doing super
Speaker:chats because it's on YouTube. And,
Speaker:apparently, and I know I'm guilty of this, I often call
Speaker:those donations. I'd be like, hey. Thanks so much for the donation.
Speaker:And Ralph, being a guy with 30 years of
Speaker:tax knowledge, politely said, hey,
Speaker:Dave. You might wanna be careful throwing out the word
Speaker:donation unless you're an actual nonprofit
Speaker:because the FTC doesn't like it when you bend the
Speaker:truth. And so that's why the FTC has busted influencers
Speaker:who are saying they'll hold up a bottle of something. They're like, I love this
Speaker:stuff. Yeah. Well, you need to let your audience know that you just got paid
Speaker:$35 to hold that up. There are the FTC is
Speaker:now going over people who are fudging your numbers. So if
Speaker:you have a bunch of people overseas clicking on
Speaker:iPhones to run up your numbers, especially if you
Speaker:have advertisers, I like to call that fraud, but the FTC
Speaker:is starting to crack down on that. And so
Speaker:as influencers, and that's a word I am really not comfortable with, but
Speaker:you get the idea. When we have an audience, we have to be careful
Speaker:what we say because the bigger we are, the bigger the
Speaker:chance that the FTC might come knocking on our door,
Speaker:and they go, okay. So I understand you're a nonprofit. And you're
Speaker:like, no. And they're like, well, you've been accepting, in quotation marks, mister
Speaker:Jackson, donations. And then in the immortal
Speaker:words of Ricky Ricardo, I got lots of explaining to do.
Speaker:What kind of accent was that? I have no idea. But, just thank
Speaker:you, Ralph, for the input. And, so what do you call
Speaker:it when somebody sends you money? I talked about it a a couple episodes
Speaker:ago, but there are these ways for people to support your show,
Speaker:And I believe that's the phrase I'm gonna be using. Thank you so much for
Speaker:your support. That was an old remember Bartles and James? Anybody
Speaker:around here from the eighties? There was a, 2 old guys on a
Speaker:porch drinking wine coolers, and they'd be like, thank you so much for your
Speaker:support. Maybe that's the line we need to adopt. Instead of thank you
Speaker:so much for the donations, it's thank you so much for the
Speaker:support. And with that, I say, thank you so much for your
Speaker:support. Anybody who went out to thanks davejackson.com,
Speaker:That's the thing I threw out there just to see if anybody would. So thank
Speaker:you to everyone who did that. If you are looking
Speaker:to really, like, take your podcast
Speaker:up a notch and you need some feedback, and and you need
Speaker:somebody to go, hey. You got some low hanging fruit there.
Speaker:I would love to help you. It's what I do. Go to school of podcasting.com/listener
Speaker:or just use the coupon code listener when you sign up. That's great
Speaker:on a 30 or 30 day or yearly
Speaker:membership. And if you're worried about that, don't because you can go, hey, Dave. It's
Speaker:day number 29. Can I get a refund? And I will go, yes. And
Speaker:that comes with unlimited consulting. It comes with an amazing
Speaker:an amazing community with people like Ralph and Craig
Speaker:and Chrissy and the whole Chrissy, I shouldn't have named names Stephanie. See,
Speaker:I could be here for an hour now naming names. And, also,
Speaker:step by step courses on how to plan, launch, and grow your podcast.
Speaker:And if you wanna monetize, there's stuff on that too. Schoolofpodcasting.com.
Speaker:Thanks so much for tuning in. Until next week. Take
Speaker:care. God bless. Class is dismissed.