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This is Grow the Show, the podcast that helps you grow your podcast. My name is Kevin Svidlin. I am your podcast growth coach. And today I'm going to share with you the five recent shifts in podcasting that have made it so that podcasting is now on easy mode for business owners. So by the end of this episode, you're going to understand the five things that have changed in the online world recently that are making it easier than ever to use a podcast to grow your business and grow your audience. Now is the best time to start podcasting. As a business owner, it has never been easier. I've spent years studying podcast growth and content marketing, and recently I've noticed five major shifts that make podcasting simpler and more effective than ever for business owners. Now, to make sure these shifts were real, I've implemented them myself with hundreds of clients and the results must My podcast has driven over $3 million in sales, and that's with me only having to spend about one hour per week making content. And the same thing is happening for the hundreds of business owners that I've worked with as well. Podcasting has become a cheat code for business owners who want to grow their audience, build trust and drive sales without the daily grind of other content platforms. So today I'm going to break down the five shifts that have completely changed the game for podcasting recently and and made it possible for business owners to thrive. It's clear to me that we are in a new era. And once you understand these five shifts, podcasting is going to feel like easy mode for you too. Especially if you can master shift number five. Now, the first change that I've noticed is this. We are now in the midst of what is being called a trust recession. So a few years ago, customers were more willing to take a chance on a new high ticket product or service with minimal research. Today, that's no longer the case. People are skeptical, they're cautious, and they're far more selective about where they spend their money. And to me, there's two big reasons for this. First, money is not as cheap to borrow as it was in the 2010s. Interest rates are higher, costs are up, and even your customers, customers are a little bit slower to buy. And so that means that people are putting more thought into their spending and they need to feel like they're absolutely sure they're making the right decision before they purchase. The second reason we're in a trust recession actually has nothing to do with the economy. You see, up until about 2022 ish, buying expensive products or services or online coaching was still kind of a new thing and people were more willing to take a chance on it because they hadn't been burned yet. But at this point, most high ticket buyers have had at least one bad experience and they're wary. They want to know that they're buying from someone who is actually going to deliver on their promises. Because. Because by now they've bought things where the person they bought from did not deliver on their promises. So if you're a business owner trying to convert high ticket clients, trust is not optional, it is a requirement. And podcasting in my experience, is the fastest way to build trust. Unlike social media, posts, emails or even YouTube where people get easily distracted, podcasts give your audience extended time with you. Because when someone listens to your voice for 30, 60, even 90 straight minutes, they're going to get to know you and who you are and what you stand for and how you can help them. It's like having a one on one coffee chat with each individual member of your audience. At scale, you're going to have time to build a real connection and show them the human side of you and your business. Compare that to social media, which the analogy I use is it's more like a crowded food court. Every vendor is shouting at passersby to try a free sample. Hey, look at this, look at me, look at me. And yeah, even if somebody does stop and taste what you're offering by watching your 60 second video, they're usually not sticking around to chat with you for an hour. They're scrolling past and they're on to the next free sample, right? Podcasting, on the other hand, satisfies what is known as the seven hour Rule from the popular book Oversubscribed. And the idea of the seven hour rule is that people need to spend about seven hours engaging with your content before they're ready to buy. With a podcast, just a couple episodes can get them to seven hours. Compare that to short form video where if your videos are one minute long, you're going to need people to watch 420 of your short form video clips just to get them to spend seven hours with you. How long is it going to take you to make 420 short form videos compared to seven episodes of a podcast? Now I have seen the trust factor play out in my own business. 92% of my to date 464 high ticket clients listened to at least one podcast episode before making a high ticket purchase. This is why some of the most well known business influencers in the world take the time to create and publish a podcast. These are millionaires, Deca, millionaires, billionaires. And they are still taking hours out of their week to create long form content. And that's because the trust recession is real. And the fastest way to get online buyers to trust you today is through a podcast. But here's a question you might be asking. How can a podcast help me build trust if it's mostly me interviewing other people? Well, that brings us to shift number two. Today, solo podcast episodes are outperforming guest interviews. You see, when podcasting first started gaining traction in the early 2010s, almost every show followed the same formula. It was weekly interviews with guests. And from 2015 to 2020, this was revolutionary, right? It was the first time we could listen to unfiltered hour plus long conversations with successful people, people who weren't doing interviews on the news and stuff. So it was the first time we were hearing them talk like this and it felt raw, personal and exciting. But now the game has changed. The interview format isn't new anymore. It's everywhere. And because it's everywhere, most of the podcasts available right now are, well, they're kind of mediocre. There's just too many 45 minute interviews recycling the same topics with the same guests. Another thing that's making interviews work not so well anymore is that they often lack focus. Conducting a great interview is a skill that many people have devoted their whole lives to cultivating. And many of the podcasters that I hear anyway are amateur interviewers. The interviews tend to be all over the place. They cover the guest's entire life or career, all the way from I was born on a dark and stormy night to here's what I had for breakfast this morning. And it takes a lot of time for the host and the guest to actually share something that's unique, that's valuable, that's transformational. And so what happens is the listeners have to sit through all of the fluff, background stories, small talk, tangents before they get to the good stuff, anything valuable. Compare that to a solo episode like this. If you look at the top performing value driven podcasts today, many of them rely on solo content. These episodes feature the host speaking directly to their audience, sharing insights, teaching, or telling stories. There's no guest required. But why is this? Why are solo episodes performing so well? Well, there are a few reasons. First, they're fresh. Listeners, like I said before, are tired of the same guests making the same rounds on the same podcasts. Solo episodes offer something New second solo episodes are efficient. With interviews, you might sit through 90 minutes of back and forth just for a couple minutes of actionable insights. A solo episode cuts all of that out. There's no small talk, there's no tangents, just focused value. And third, solo episodes tend to be shorter. So instead of having to commit to an hour or more when a listener presses play, when solo episodes, listeners can get massive value just from 20 or even 15 minutes. For busy people who tend to be the ones who have the money to spend, that's a huge win. And they're going to pick a 15 minute episode to listen to first over a three hour episode. Now, I personally stumbled into the solo episode shift by accident in December 2021. I had a guest cancel on me at the last minute. And back then, my episodes were all guest episodes. I didn't want to skip that week's episode, but I didn't have time to book a new guest. So I decided, all right, I'm just gonna try something new. And I recorded my first solo episode. I just shared a story of my own and provided an insight from that story. I published the episode and the response was incredible. My audience loved it. They were like, this is amazing. Can you make more of these? And I was surprised and honestly a little skeptical. But I kept experimenting. So every so often I'd put out another solo episode. And over and over again, the results were undeniable. Solo episodes performed better across the board. And while my guests interviews had about a 65% completion rate, meaning on average listeners were listening to 65% of the episode, my solo episodes were hitting 80%, 90% even sometimes over 100% completion rate. Which means on average, people were listening to my episode more than once. And these episodes were getting more downloads than my guest episodes. But here's the real kicker. What I also would find is that solo episodes generate way more sales than guest episodes. And when you take a step back and think about it, this makes sense. As business owners, we're trying to use our podcasts to build trust with our audience, right? We want our audience to buy from us. But if your show is all guest interviews, guess what? You are not building trust in you. You are building audience trust in your guest. So your audience walks away thinking, wow, I really want to buy from the guest that I just heard from. But with solo episodes, it's different. It's just you, you are the one delivering value, building trust and nurturing your audience. And people finish your episode and they think, wow, I really need to work with that person you. And if you look at the most successful podcasts driving real business results right now, they've all made this shift to solo content. Many of them now have at least 50% solo episodes, and some have transitioned entirely to solo shows. The old formula, weekly guest interviews. It had its time. But today, the biggest opportunities lie in creating focused, value packed solo episodes that position you as the expert. And this is good news, because that feeds into shift number three, which is the third thing that puts podcasts into easy mode for business owners. And that is this. Creating quality podcast episodes has gotten cheaper while video content costs have skyrocketed. So now that podcasting is all about delivering value through solo episodes, you don't need an expensive studio like I have or a big production team to compete for attention. In fact, podcasting has become one of the cheapest and most efficient forms of content to create. Take one of my past students, Brian Lubin, for example. He's built a seven figure business with nothing more than a $250 microphone. No fancy cameras, no costly gear, just a simple setup that works. And there's a few reasons why this is the case. And podcasting has gotten cheaper to do in a world where everything else, even eggs, has gotten more expensive. First off, solo episodes mean simpler content with less to manage. You're not juggling guest schedules, you're not chasing down busy people for interviews, or coordinating in person production, which is really expensive. It's just you, a microphone, and your message. So secondly, the cost of high quality podcast gear has dropped significantly. When I started podcasting in 2018, creating a professional sounding show was really expensive. I needed a $500 Shure SM7B microphone just to get that studio quality sound. And on top of that, I also needed a $100 preamp to plug it into. And I needed another thing that was called a cloudlifter. That was another 100 bucks just to boost the audio signal. It was $700 just for the gear, and that's just to record one person. I was recording guests, so it was really $1,400. And on top of that, I had to hire an audio engineer to make the episodes sound great. I didn't understand how to use the fancy audio editing software. And so these costs are adding up into hundreds and hundreds of dollars just to make an audio podcast sound good. Today, though, it is a completely different story. Now you can buy a Shure MV7 microphone, which sounds just as good as this $500 one for just like a little over 200 bucks. And you don't need a preamp. It plugs right into your computer. There's no extra equipment needed. And on top of that, AI tools have replaced expensive editing. So platforms like Descript make it easy to edit your podcast episodes yourself. And for just $30 a month, you can create a professional sounding show with without needing to hire a team. Now, I do still send my episodes to an audio engineer and a video editor because I have the budget for it and it does make a difference. But if you're just starting out, you don't need that. A 200 mic and some basic AI tools can absolutely get your podcast off the ground if your content is good. Now compare all of that to video production, which has not gotten cheaper. It has only gotten more expensive. The cost of cameras and lights and editing has not gone down and the competition has gotten higher. So if you scroll through Reels or TikToks or YouTube shorts, you're going to see Hollywood level production quality. And so, in order to stand out, most business owners are spending tens of thousands of dollars on video equipment and editors just to keep up. Not to mention more and more hours every single week filming video. And with all of that, there's no guarantee that their content is going to perform and bring them any leads and sales. Podcasting, on the other hand, is the opposite. It is affordable. You can get started with a $200 mic and $30 a month software. It is fast. You can record an episode anywhere, anytime. It is efficient, and you can focus on delivering value without getting bogged down by flashy production. The bottom line is this. Podcasting has become the most accessible way to create high quality content. You don't need to spend a fortune or hire a big team to start building trust and nurturing your audience. And as video and social media content become more expensive and more competitive, the simplicity and the cost effectiveness of podcasting make it an even smarter choice.