217 | Stop Putting In The Reps!

Summary

Grow The Show Episode 217: "Stop Putting In The Reps!"

Release Date: April 22, 2025
Host: Kevin Chemidlin

In Episode 217 of "Grow The Show," host Kevin Chemidlin dives deep into the often-overlooked distinction between simply putting in effort (“reps”) and executing the right strategies (“iterations”) to achieve meaningful growth in podcasting and content creation. Through personal anecdotes, expert insights, and actionable advice, Kevin equips business owners and podcasters with the necessary tools to transform their content from stagnant to thriving.

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1. The Reps vs. Results Dilemma

Timestamp: [00:00]

Kevin opens the episode with a compelling scenario presented by a podcasting business owner: despite publishing over 500 episodes since 2015, the show remains stagnant at 200 downloads per episode. This raises a critical question: Why aren't consistent efforts translating into growth?

Notable Quote:
“I don’t get it. I’ve done the reps. Why don’t I have any growth?” — [00:00]

2. Personal Anecdote: The Gym Parallel

Timestamp: [02:15]

To illustrate his point, Kevin shares a personal story from his time at the gym. For five years, he diligently performed lat pull-downs, believing he was building strength. However, his lats remained underdeveloped because he was executing the exercises incorrectly. It wasn't until he hired a personal trainer that he realized his form was flawed. This revelation emphasizes that consistent effort without proper technique yields little to no progress.

Notable Quote:
“If you keep practicing the wrong reps, you will permanently do the wrong thing.” — [09:45]

3. The Podcasting Parallel: Wrong Reps Yield No Growth

Timestamp: [04:30]

Kevin draws a direct parallel between his gym experience and podcasting. Many business owners focus on producing content consistently without understanding the nuances of effective podcasting. They may lack knowledge in areas such as interviewing techniques, branding, content packaging, promotion strategies, audience engagement, and technical aspects like equipment and lighting. This lack of expertise leads to stagnant podcast metrics despite the significant time and effort invested.

Key Points:

• Consistency alone is insufficient for growth.
• Lack of proper strategies results in wasted efforts.
• Common pitfalls include poor interview skills, ineffective promotion, and subpar content quality.

4. Iterations Over Reps: Emphasizing Continuous Improvement

Timestamp: [06:50]

Kevin introduces the concept of "iterations" in contrast to "reps." Borrowing from Naval Ravikant’s insights shared on Chris Williamson's "Modern Wisdom" podcast, Kevin underscores that success is not about the sheer volume of efforts but about making continuous, informed improvements. Iterations involve testing different strategies, analyzing results, and refining approaches to achieve steady growth.

Notable Quote:
“Success in life, in content, in business, is not a function of time. It is a function of iterations.” — [07:30]

5. The Importance of Immediate Feedback and Metrics

Timestamp: [08:10]

Kevin emphasizes the necessity of closely monitoring key performance indicators (KPIs) to gauge the effectiveness of content strategies. Specifically, he highlights:

• Completion Rates: A critical KPI that reflects whether listeners are engaged enough to finish episodes. Completion rates below 65-75% indicate retention issues.
• Download Metrics: Tracking download numbers helps assess the reach and impact of promotional efforts.
• Engagement Metrics: Listener interactions, such as comments and feedback, are essential for understanding audience reception.

Notable Quote:
“If your audience is not growing every single week, you are putting in wrong reps, you’re wasting time and you’re practicing the wrong way to do it.” — [08:50]

6. Practical Steps for Effective Iterations

Timestamp: [09:30]

Kevin provides a step-by-step guide for podcasters to implement iterative improvements:

1. Analyze Completion Rates:

   • Action: Review how much of each episode listeners are consuming.
   • Goal: Achieve a completion rate above 65-75% by refining intros, delivering on episode promises, and enhancing content quality.

2. Optimize Promotion Efforts:

   • Action: Experiment with different social media platforms, email marketing strategies, and engagement tactics.
   • Goal: Increase downloads by tweaking promotional methods until noticeable growth is observed.

3. Enhance Content Packaging:

   • Action: For YouTube content, adjust titles and thumbnails to attract more views.
   • Goal: Boost engagement by making content more appealing and clickable.

4. Iterate on Content Formats:

   • Action: Test various content formats such as B-roll with text, talking heads, skits, and different reel formats on Instagram.
   • Goal: Identify which formats resonate best with the audience and replicate their success.

Notable Quote:
“If you are publishing YouTube videos and you’re getting under a hundred views every single video, you need to change your titles and thumbnails until you see views and engagement start to increase, then put in reps.” — [09:50]

7. Avoiding the Trap of Stagnant Efforts

Timestamp: [09:15]

Kevin warns against the long-term consequences of perpetuating ineffective strategies. Podcasters might either:

• Quit Early: Frustrated by lack of growth, leading to abandonment of the podcasting effort.
• Persist Blindly: Continue ineffective practices for years, resulting in prolonged stagnation without realizing the root cause.

He advocates for timely interventions and iterative approaches to prevent wasting valuable time and resources.

Notable Quote:
“They do 10 years, 10 years of reps and they waste 10 years of their life toiling away on a crappy podcast thinking, I just gotta put in the time.” — [05:50]

8. Conclusion: Practice Makes Perfect

Timestamp: [10:00]

Concluding the episode, Kevin reinforces the saying often attributed to Vince Lombardi: “Practice doesn’t make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect.” He emphasizes that continuously refining strategies ensures sustainable growth, whereas repeating the same ineffective actions leads to permanent stagnation.

Notable Quote:
“Perfect practice makes perfect. So if you keep practicing the wrong reps, you will permanently do the wrong thing.” — [10:00]

Call to Action: Kevin urges listeners to critically evaluate their current content strategies, monitor key metrics diligently, and embrace an iterative mindset to foster consistent growth and engagement.

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Key Takeaways:

• Quality Over Quantity: Consistent effort is valuable only when executed correctly.
• Iterative Improvement: Regularly analyze and refine strategies based on performance data.
• Monitor Key Metrics: Focus on completion rates, downloads, and engagement to guide improvements.
• Adapt and Evolve: Stay responsive to changes in audience behavior and platform algorithms to sustain growth.

For podcasters and content creators aiming to elevate their presence and impact, Kevin Chemidlin’s insights in this episode serve as a crucial guide to transforming mere effort into tangible success.

Transcript

[A]

I don't get it. I've done the reps. Why don't I have any growth? That's what a podcasting business owner told me the other day. He's been at it for 10 years. He launched his show in 2015. He's published over 500 episodes, and today, he's getting the exact same amount of downloads that he got when he launched. 200 downloads per episode. And the worst part is that he's convinced he's doing everything right. But here's the thing. You can publish 500 episodes of your podcast and still get nowhere if you're doing it wrong. This is Grow the Show, the podcast that helps online business owners grow their audience and their business through podcasting. My name is Kevin Schmidlin. I am your podcast growth coach. And today on the show, we are diving into a simple but powerful question. What is the difference between doing reps and actually getting results? We're going to talk about why consistency is not enough, how to know if you're on the right track, and what to do if your podcast, or really any of your content is stuck in place. And along the way, I'm going to share a lesson I learned the hard way at the gym that changed the way that I approach everything with my content and my business. So if you're ready to stop wasting time on content that does not move the needle, stick around for this episode of Grow the Show. Now, the other day, I met with a podcasting business owner who has been at it for 10 years. His show launched in 2015. He's at 200 downloads per episode. He's 500 episodes in, and he keeps saying, I've done the reps. Why don't I have the results? And I immediately knew what was going on here because of my own experience at the gym. So back in 2017, I started lifting weights, and for five years, I lifted weights by myself. I would watch workout videos online. I would read books about form and stuff like that. And I went to the gym three to four times a week and lifted weights. The problem was my lats were super weak. They were tiny, still not as big as they could be. Right? My lats were small, even though once a week for five years, I did a normal amount of lat pulldowns. You know that machine at the gym with the bar and you pull it down? And so I did that for five years, but my lats were just super weak. They were small, bro. Fast forward to 2022, and I hired my first personal trainer, the kind that actually Sits there and works out with you. And sure enough, in our very first session, he had me do some lat pull downs. And I did one rep. And he said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on. And I remember I wasn't expecting this. And I was like, oh, why did he stop me? After one rep, he said, stick your chest up and I want you to imagine you're pulling down with your elbows. And so I did one of those and my lats went, whoa. And I thought, oh, my gosh, I have been doing these wrong for five years now. The next day, my lats had never been more sore than after doing just probably 30 correct lat pulldowns. And here's the worst part. I had actually shown up at the gym. I was consistent, I put in the work, but none of the reps counted because they were wrong. That is what is happening with countless business owners now with their content. So it is extremely common that I come across a business owner who either says, yeah, I've been putting in the reps, or let me just get some reps in. And I'm like, no, please don't just get some reps in of what you're currently doing, because what you're currently doing isn't correct. And that's why you have no audience, and that's why you're frustrated, and that's why you're wondering if you should stop doing your podcast. Cause it's such a time suck. It's because you're doing the wrong reps. These business owners don't know anything about interviewing or branding a podcast correctly, or how to package content, or how to promote content, or how to get an audience to actually take action, or how to introduce an episode, or cameras or mics or lighting, or how to show up or any of these things. But everybody thinks that podcasting and content should be something that you just figure out. So one of two things happens. Either they do 10 reps by themselves and nothing happens, and it's frustrating and they just quit because nothing happens. Which honestly, I think is a better outcome. Or worst case, they do 10 years, 10 years of reps and they waste 10 years of their life toiling away on a crappy podcast thinking, I just gotta put in the time, I just gotta put in the time. And it's just really a waste of time. They just lose all of that time. It's all wasted because we have to correct their form. And in year 11, will they finally be doing correct reps? And will their show finally be growing where if they were doing correct reps. 10 years ago, they would have 10 years of growth by now. So what is the solution to this? Well, last week I was listening to Chris Williamson's podcast. It's called Modern Wisdom. I'm a big fan. I really like the way that he interviews folks and he had Naval Ravikant on his show. Naval is a well known podcast guest, but he hasn't been on a podcast in like three or four years. So it was cool. Now in the episode of Modern Wisdom that came out last week, Naval specified, it is about iterations, not reps. Iterations, not reps. Now we in the online business and personal development world love to talk about get the reps in. You gotta get the reps in. It's about reps. And people probably including me, have said this on this podcast within my content. It's about reps, it's about reps, it's about reps. But here's the thing. Success in life, in content, in business, is not a function of time. It is a function of iterations, of figuring out how to do something right and then reps. So what I want you to do from now on is stop telling yourself you're putting in reps unless your audience is growing. If your audience is not growing every single week, you are putting in wrong reps, you're wasting time and you're practicing the wrong way to do it. It is not the type of thing where you just do 500 and it starts to work. It's about iterating what you're doing until you see growth. Because this is another question that I get all the time. People are like, at what point should I start to see growth? And I say if you're doing it right, immediately. Literally immediately. I didn't know it at the time, but when I launched my first podcast in 2018, I was a software developer at a health insurance company. I did not have an audience. I had maybe 500 followers on Instagram. That was it. I launched a podcast and on day one I got 250 downloads. Day one with no audience. Now again, I didn't know what I was doing at the time. Looking back, I was like, oh, I happened to guess a correct way to grow a podcast in 2018. Then however, that correct way changed and so I kept repping the same thing. And then it stopped working, but I kept repping the same thing. Cause I didn't get this back then, so I didn't iterate. And so I went through a period of like a year where it stopped growing. And that was really painful. So if you're somebody today who's putting out episodes every single week, spending time and money producing podcast episodes, your downloads aren't going up, you're not getting any engagement, you're not getting any sales, your audience is not growing. You are putting in wrong reps. And so what we need to do is iterate so it's iterations until you see growth. Once it starts growing, then it's reps. Do you see what I'm saying? So here's what this means in real life for your content. First of all, if you've never looked at your completion rates, look at them. It is the KPI that tells you whether or not your podcast is good. And if you haven't looked at them, it's probably not good. And if that's the case, you probably have a huge hole in your podcast. You think you have a growth problem, but you have a retention problem. People are turning off your episodes. So if your completion rates are below 65 to 75%, you need to keep tinkering with your intros and your content and the promise that each episode makes until you see the completion rate go above 65 to 75%. If you continue to do reps currently and your completion rate is below that, you are gonna do wrong reps after that. If you wanna look at your podcast downloads, you need to keep tinkering with your promotion efforts until your downloads start to go up. So how are you posting on social media? What platforms are you posting on? Are you emailing your list? Are you making a post every week that tells people that you have a new episode and do they actually comment on it and engage with it? Are you hearing from listeners? Are they writing in and saying, hey, this episode is really great? If this stuff isn't happening, you have to keep tinkering with your promo efforts until you start to see results. If you're on YouTube, you have to tinker with your packaging. If you're publishing YouTube videos and you're getting under a hundred views every single video, you need to change your titles and thumbnails. I don't care how many videos you make. If you're not getting views, you need to change your titles and thumbnails until you see views and engagement start to increase, then put in reps. If you look at my YouTube channel right now, you'll see that I am currently tinkering with Adam, making adjustments, trying different thumbnails, trying different titles so that I can find the thing that works for me and my audience on Instagram. It's about posting different types of reel formats with different hooks, different formats. Is it B roll with text? Is it a talking head? Is it a skit? There's so many different types of formats that are working right now, and so try a bunch of them. Here's one of my favorite ones. I see so many business owners. I look at their Instagram profile, and I go straight to the Reels tab to see views, and it'll be 500, 500, 500, 500, 500,. 6,500, 500, 500. And I'm like, look, look, you did a correct rep. You did it. Do more of that. But then they went back to doing wrong reps, right? So on Instagram, it's just straight up, look at your reels. Which ones got more views than the other ones? That's a correct rep or a more correct rep. Iterate to that. Now do that every single time. You'll get more views. Keep iterating until you get more views. Then keep doing that. Right. Hopefully you're following along here. I'm getting all worked up. The same thing is true on LinkedIn. If you are posting LinkedIn posts and every single post gets under 200 impressions, every single time you are doing wrong reps, you have to experiment with different types of posts and formats and hooks. Is there an image? Is there a video? Are you writing a story? Are you giving some information? Is there a carousel? Play with it a little bit. But if you're not getting impressions, you're doing wrong reps. All right, so I think you get the point here, and I'll leave you with this. I want you to remember a quote that is often attributed to Vince Lombardi, who is a famous football coach from the NFL. The super bowl trophy's actually named after him, if you don't know. And so there's a quote that he has that I want you to remember. Practice doesn't make perfect. Perfect. Practice makes perfect. Another way to think about it is practice makes permanent. So if you keep practicing the wrong reps, you will permanently do the wrong thing. If you keep practicing things that don't grow your audience or your podcast, you will continue to not get growth. Okay, so that's gonna do it for this episode. My hope is that you have experienced me reach through the device you're using to hear me or see me right now and shake you by the shoulders and say, you need to change what you're doing if you're not getting any growth, and that you take steps to change it.

[B]

I have two things for you before I let you go number one, real quick, if you've ever gotten any value from the show, please, if you haven't yet, leave us a five star review. I get a notification every single time reviews come through and they almost always make my day. So please, please, I would love to hear from you. It really, really helps us. And then the second thing is, if you are a podcaster who needs help with production, if you are struggling with all the time it takes to make these things and you haven't yet, definitely set up a conversation with Podcast Boutique. They are the team that I've been working with for five, six years. They are my most trusted production agency and recently they added an incredible service that you're going to want to hear about. They call it Record and Forget. I've been using it for months. It is amazing. You just record your episode and send it to them. They do the content editing for you. They create titles, show notes, they can make it into an amazing YouTube video clips and of course, high value production. So the content editing piece is the thing that I know people have been asking for for a long time. It is unbelievably good. All I do is record. I send it off to them, they handle the rest. And by the way, they're also closely in lockstep with me. So anytime I discover something that is working to grow and monetize a podcast, I immediately share it with them. We work to implement it with my show and then they implement it with the other shows that they work on. So if you're spending time yourself doing any of the editing or post production, or if your current post production team isn't cutting it, maybe they're an internal team that doesn't know what they're doing, or they're an external team that's either too expensive or does not keep their promises, which is very common. Check out Podcast Boutique. You can go to podcastboutique.com let them know that I sent you. All right, I'll see you in the next episode.