Kevin (0:00)

I have been building this podcast, Grow the Show, for five years, and today I'm walking away hundreds of episodes later. Thousands of podcasters helped. And yet recently, I looked up and I realized something that I didn't expect. It's time for a change. Over the years, I've told so many podcasting entrepreneurs that they needed to refine their premise, whether it was their audience, their show promise, or even the title of their show. And now it's my turn. But why, though? Why is your podcast's brand, premise, and positioning so important? And what made me decide it was time to rebrand? Well, that's what this episode is all about. This is Grow the Show, the podcast that grows your podcast. My name is Kevin. I'm your podcast growth coach. And today I'm sharing five realizations that changed how I see content, business, and what it really means to grow an audience. And here's what you're going to learn. Number one, why I am rebranding a show with such a strong name. Number two, the kind of audience you should never build a podcast around. I learned this one the hard way. And number three, the subtle trap that experienced creators fall into without realizing it. And I fell into it, too. Plus, of course, I'm going to reveal the new name of this show, who it's going to be for, and what is coming next. So if you've ever wondered whether your show is still aligned with your goals or if it might be time for a reinvention of your own, this episode is gonna be for you. So let's dive into the first of five realizations that I've had that led to this decision. The first realization came to me as I was reviewing an audience survey that I did last fall. So I try to do an audience survey about once a year, and I've done, I think, three now for the Grow the Show audience. And what I've noticed is that every time I do an audience survey, I'm surprised by the fact that the majority of people who fill it out had discovered me within the last six. Six months. You see, unlike every other creator and audience builder, I have this idea that my audience has been with me the whole time. So, like, when I'm talking to you, I'm imagining somebody who's been listening to me since 2020. But the reality is, very few people have been paying attention to me since 2020. And that's probably true for most audiences. But what I recently realized is that that is especially true for my audience. Why is that? Well, it is no secret that most Podcasters quit their show really quickly. And I've heard people say the average podcast only makes it to five episodes. I've heard eight. I've heard 10. But regardless of which number you choose, everybody knows that podcasters tend to quit. But what I didn't really realize for a while is that if you have a podcast that is about growing a podcast, that podcast is only interesting to people who currently are podcasters. So what that means is every six months, a bunch of people start a new podcast, and they become a potential listener of my show. But the problem is, every six months, roughly the same amount of people quit podcasting and are no longer interested in my show because my podcast is the podcast that grows your podcast. Also, by the way, I'm pretty tired of saying the word podcast. I'm not gonna stop, but damn. So if I look at the past five years and I look at my total audience size, I'm gonna be honest. It's smaller than I want it to be. And also, I have some, like, real imposter syndrome, because a lot of the people that I've helped have much bigger audiences than mine. And what's been weird to me is I'm like, man, this is kind of frustrating because, like, these people are doing the stuff that I taught them to do, and their audiences are growing way bigger than mine. What the heck? Well, if you think about it, it makes sense. When people quit their podcast, they quit. Being a listener of grow the show, I recently learned that there is a term for this. It's called structural churn. I learned this from Alex Hormozi, who was talking about businesses where your customers naturally churn out. And I was like, ah. As soon as I heard the term, I was like, oh, my God. That is what I have. My audience has structural churn. Because so many people quit podcasting. Other audiences that have built in structural churn include real estate agents. So if you sell houses, the then the only people who are gonna be interested in content about selling houses are the people who right now want to buy a house. But the second they close on that house, they are not going to be interested at all in house buying content for 1 year, 5 years, 10 years, 30 years. So if that's you, if you're making content around buying a house, you have structural churn. Same thing with weddings. If your content is for people who are going to get married and it's about having a wedding, you have structural churn, because that audience is only going to be interested in your content from the moment they get engaged. To till the moment they get married, hopefully if their vows are true, for the rest of their lives. But realistically, probably five plus years, right? So realization number one is that I am an audience growth guy who is trying to build an audience on top of an avatar that has structural churn. And so because of that, my audience churned. I've had 7,500 Instagram followers for three years and it's stayed the same. And a large part that has to do with the fact that I'm talking about podcast growth and people quit podcasting. Now, this is particularly impactful if you are a podcaster, if you're on TikTok or on social media, you can post content for an audience that's going to structurally churn, because as that audience churns, the algorithm is going to change the content that it shows to those people. We don't have to worry about that on social media because as soon as somebody gets married, Instagram's gonna figure out pretty quickly that they're not interested in marriage content anymore. So if you're posting marriage content, Instagram's constantly going to be adjusting so so that it shows you to the right people. Podcasting isn't like that. We are our own algorithm. We have to go out, make people discover us, and get them to pay attention to our show. And because it's so much work to get a podcast listener, if you really want to build a show that lasts, then you want to make it so that the show is built off of a premise where people are going to be interested in the show every single week for years to come. That is the change I am going to be making with my show, where the people who are interested in the content that I'm publishing are going to be interested in it for years to come. So that's realization number one. Realization number two came to me while I was attending a mastermind a couple of years ago. At that mastermind, there was a presentation being made by a fellow named Rich Sheffrin. Rich is an OG in the marketing space. He's been doing marketing for fricking decades longer than I've been a functional adult. And what he taught in that session is that marketing tactics have a five year life cycle. So essentially, at any given moment, there's marketing tactics that are really new. And because they're so new, they work really, really, really well. And they work well because, number one, people haven't really been marketed to in that way before. So they're not like tuning it out yet. Like, think about how you tune Out Instagram ads, you don't even see them. You just, wow, go right past it unless it's really good, like mine. But new marketing, it gets your attention because you're like, oh, that's interesting. I haven't seen this before. So not only is it new to the people who are seeing the marketing, but it also works really, really well because there's way less competition. So think about like if you were a podcast listener in like 2017. Squarespace, Casper mattresses, Athletic Greens. These companies exploded thanks to podcast advertising, because other companies were not podcast advertising and it was really cheap. So if you are a podcast listener, you learned about these companies then and you probably bought something. That's an example of in the early days how there's big gains to be had early on in a marketing tactic. What does that have to do with me, you and my podcast? Well, Rich Zephrin went on to explain that for the first two years of a marketing tactic, it works really well. And there's a huge advantage just in using that tactic. So you could be a crappy marketer, but just because you're one of the people using that new tactic, you get great results. Then the word starts to spread, and with time, more and more people start to use that marketing tactic, so there's more competition. Also, people who are being marketed to start to see more and more marketing via that tactic and start to tune it out. It stops working so much. Fast forward to five years after a new marketing tactic hits the scene. At that point, there's virtually no inherent advantage using that specific tactic. Meaning, like, just using that tactic alone isn't going to do anything. You have to be a really, really good marketer to use that tactic and have it be successful. So marketing tactics come and go. The same thing is true for any content format. YouTube, podcast, social media platforms, different types of posts on social media platforms. It's all true. Now, I personally think that podcasting has reset the clock a little bit because the word podcast is changing. So the definition of what a podcast is in people's minds is different now. So that kind of reset that five year clock, but the five year clock is still ticking. And so I'm someone who started being the podcast guy in 2020, and podcasting was different then. Like it was, it was kind of sexier. People were trying it out more. It was much easier to grow podcasts in 2020, and things are different now. And so as I look ahead at my future and the company that I'm building, I'm like, do I want to build a company around podcast growth. Am I confident that podcasting will still be a thing in five years, 10 years, even 30 years? Here's my question. What's the grow the blog guy doing right now? You know, blogs were super popular and were a great way to grow a business in like the mid 2000s. And so if somebody like created a brand around being the blog person, what are they doing now? I don't want to be that guy. So what I've learned is that tactics come and go. I am not interested in building a company around a singular tactic. I want to build a company around an outcome. Side note, one just final thing on like, the five year life cycle of tactics, I speak to a lot of podcasters who were successful like between 2015 and 2019. And it happens all the time. It breaks my heart. I get on a call with a podcaster and they're like, we really, really had a Great show in 2015. We had all these downloads in 2018 and 2019, and now it's just not the same. We're struggling. We really want to get back to where we were. And I, at this point, don't even help those folks because they're essentially searching for a way to make podcasting as easy as it used to be for them. Like in 2019. Cause it was just way easier to grow a show. Cause there was less competition and more people were discovering podcasts. So it was just way easier to grow a podcast back then. And there's way more competition now. Your podcast has to be better. You have to put more effort into your podcast now to make it as successful, to have the same amount of success as you did in 2019. So, you know, these folks come to me and they're not really interested in putting more effort into the show. They would rather find the strategy that can make it so that they can have the same success with the same amount of effort that they had in 2018. And it's kind of doomed. I tell them and I show them, here's how to grow your podcast today. And they're like. Because they're like, well, let me try to find something that's as easy as it used to be. But they're just kind of doomed. Anyway, I digress. So here's my point. Grow the show the show and grow the show the company are built around one specific tactic. But tactics lose power, they get saturated, or they just fall out of style. And what I've seen is that businesses that are built around tactics, they have a moment, but they are vulnerable. So what I'm finding is that it is much better to build a podcast not around a tactic, but around the transformation that a tactic can cause. So it's not about how you're going to get somewhere, but it's about where you're going to get using that tactic. If you brand your podcast around that, around the outcome, around the destination, then as the tactics change, so can your podcast without having to rebrand. That is what I am going to do. Realization number three that I had recently, AI has flattened the playing field, specifically when it comes to knowledge. So like you, I have started to see AI generated posts and copy and social media stuff everywhere. And I've noticed that the tips, the tricks, the 10 step methods are all the same and they are getting virtually no engagement. People are just not engaging with how to content like they were five years ago when I launched this show and when I launched my personal brand around podcast growth in 2020. If I posted a well thought out how to podcast episode or YouTube video or even like an Instagram carousel or a video or something like that, and it like had discrete steps and it taught somebody something it did very, very well. Nowadays that is not the case. I think that that is because of AI, because AI has commoditized information, it has commoditized knowledge. Just five years ago in 2020, if you wanted to know how to do something, you had a couple of options. You could search Google and have to sift through like 25 ridiculous SEO optimized articles that were written by some software company trying to get you to get a free trial for their thing. You had to go through a bunch of information and you never really got the answer. But if you discovered a influencer on social media who you trusted, who was an expert, they were posting informational content and you loved it because you're like, oh great, finally this is some good information I could use. Let me save this. So the experts kind of served as like the sifting function. You could just say, I'm going to just do what this expert says so I don't have to sift through all the information that's poorly organized on the Internet. Then ChatGPT came to be and now you don't even go to Google anymore. You just go to ChatGPT and ask the question and it immediately gives you all the information that you need. So what does that mean for us? Well, knowledge is a commodity. Information is not scarce anymore, and it is also not so abundant that people rely on experts to curate it. Now information is at Your fingertips and the right information is there instantly. People don't need to follow you or consume your content to get information anymore. However, this is the realization. I believe that there's two things that AI will never replace and that is your experiences and your relationships. AI can't do something that you did. AI will never have a lived story like you will. So I strongly believe this is where online content is going. It's not going to be about sharing information. It's going to be about sharing the stories that you've lived and that you've encountered, the real experiences that you've had in and the relationships that you have with others. Realization number four that's going into this rebrand is the difference between attention and audience. So there's a creator who I've already mentioned on this podcast who says attention is the new oil. If you're in the entrepreneur spheres, you've heard that said before. However, I believe that there is a huge difference between attention and audience. Recently I was speaking with a team who produces a podcast for a high net worth individual. That person has tons of access and can get virtually anybody he wants as a guest on his show. And that's what he has done. He has had unbelievable big names guests on his show. However, his show has no, virtually no subscribers. And it's crazy because if you look at the YouTube channel, they have videos that have gotten in the tens of thousands of views, but they only have 3,000 subs. And their podcast gets like 200 downloads per episode, which is really surprising because they have huge names. Like the access that this person has is unbelievable. So that person has access to incredible guests. He's got a baller studio, he looks great, and he's got an expensive and talented team who clearly knows how to get attention. They can get views. But the problem is that show does not have audience. Have you ever talked to somebody who has gone viral on social media? They will tell you that they have gotten tons of attention, but it did not build an audience. Attention is when someone looks at you for a moment. Audience is when someone follows you. They know who you are and they look forward to the next thing that you publish. Think about two guitar players. One guitar player is busking in Times Square. He's just on one of the busiest streets in New York City and he has literally tens of thousands of people who pass him every day. And they pass him, they turn, they listen to him. He has their attention for just a moment. He plays songs that they already know. Maybe that's what got their attention. They knew of the song he was playing. They listen for a moment, maybe they throw in a dollar, and they move on with their day. And they never think of that guitar player ever again for the rest of their lives. That guitar player has tons of attention. He has no audience. Compare that to another guitar player. She writes and composes her own music, and she has built a following where she tours the country and fills small theaters. That guitar player may, on balance, get less attention than the busker in Times Square, if you define attention as people looking at you. So, like, the number of people who have listened to this guitar player play music is smaller. She's got less attention, but she's made more money because she has more of an audience. Those people know all of her music. They look forward to her upcoming releases, and they go out of their way to attend her shows. That is an audience. So whenever you hear somebody say, I just need more attention. Entrepreneurs, you need more attention. Yes, you need to get attention to build an audience, but what you really want is an audience, because attention is cheap and an audience is what matters. So that's realization number four. Entrepreneurs right now believe that attention is the new oil and that they need to get attention. And while that is true, let's take the analogy a little bit further. You can't put crude oil in your car. It has to be refined. So while, yes, attention is the new oil, that attention needs to be refined into audience. And audience is what can fuel a business realization number five, if you're going to create content, if you're going to build an audience, you got to be interested in it. You have to keep it interesting for yourself. I'm going to be frank. I'm a little burned out on talking about podcast intros. I'm a little burned out answering beginner questions on podcasting. And if you think back to realization number one, audience churn. It's kind of exhausting to every six months have new people who all have the same new questions and are making the same new mistakes. It's been five years. I'm kind of tired of it. I'm looking to expand. I want to branch out. So what's funny is, like, I had the idea that it might be time to rebrand, and initially I was like, I can't do that. I got to, like, represent my podcaster folks. I got to just, like, double down, right? Just double down on what you know. And for a while, I had the craving to change what I was talking about, but I felt like I hadn't earned it yet. So I'LL be honest, I've known for a while that I would like to expand my horizons in the stuff that I talk about. And it's happened quite often that people have said to me, I listen to Grow the Show, and Grow the show has helped me with my business or my Instagram, or has helped me with stuff that's not related to my podcast. So I know personally that I have the chops to expand my horizons and talk about other things. But if I'm being honest, I really haven't done that because I feel like I haven't earned it yet. And I don't know what that moment is where I'm like, oh, I've earned talking about other things. But that's the construct that I had in my head. I was like, I have to reach some sort of finish line with podcast growth before I can graduate to talking about other things. But, you know, I don't feel like I care about that anymore because there was a day where I was like, okay, well, if I were to make a show that isn't just about podcast growth and serves a larger purpose and didn't have structural churn, what would that show look like? And I started ideating, I started writing. Here's who I would interview, here's the content that I would make, here's ideas that I could have, and I'm going to be honest, I got excited again. Frankly, I have not been excited about Grow the Show content for a while. And if you look at my feed, you can see I've broken every rule. I have been inconsistent. You know, I've been republishing stuff. It just hasn't been inspired. But now I'm inspired again, and that feels freaking good. So that was realization number five. And this is something that I learned from Pat Flynn. Pat Flynn. When I interviewed him for Grow the Show a couple of years ago, he was like, as a creator, you just. You have to make it fun. If it is not fun, it's not going to be good. And if it's not good, you're eventually going to lose your audience because it's not going to be good, and they're not going to be interested. So lesson number five, despite what all the gurus, including myself, say, who say, stay focused, do what you know, don't talk about stuff you haven't done. Talk about whatever the hell you want, man. Talk about what you're excited to talk about. Because content creation is a pain in the butt. It is brutal. It is a life sentence. You gotta be having fun with it. It's gotta be something that at least a little bit, you look forward to, or else you're just doomed. This change is getting me excited again, and I'm excited to share that excitement with you. Normally, I'm not super woo woo. And I would never say something like you gotta make content around what lights you up. Because, yes, I work with tons of people who want to launch a show that's around business growth. They don't even have a business. So a topic lighting you up isn't by itself enough. Right. So if you're excited to talk about something, that doesn't mean that the show's gonna be good or that the show's gonna grow, but I can guarantee you that the show is not gonna grow if your topics don't light you up. Are you with me? So the stuff that you talk about when you make podcast episodes have to light you up in order for this to work. If they don't, it's just not gonna be good. All right, so those five realizations have led me to the decision to rename this show. Now, I am not going to be renaming my product, so I will still have the Grow the Show Accelerator. The Grow the Show accelerator is still going to be the place where I work with podcasts and podcasting teams to grow shows that are meant to support a business. However, this podcast is going to be renamed this name, and this new focus is going to solve the problems that I have mentioned here. Number one, this audience is not going to have structural churn. Number two, this is going to be agnostic of tactics. So I'm going to talk about several different tactics to achieve the transformation on the show here. And as the tactics change, that's fine. The show won't need to change either. Number three, I think that this topic is going to be immune to AI. Number four, this topic is not about getting attention. And number five, this freaking stuff lights me up. I am so excited to make this show. Now, if you look at the app that you're using to consume this content right now, you'll notice that this name isn't there yet. So I am not rolling this name out right away. It's coming down the pipeline. It'll be a few weeks because I've got some work to do with it and I want to get it right. But I'm telling you now, number one, to share these lessons and say, hey, this is what I'm doing. And so I'm going to do this live. Like, I'm going to literally, you're going to Witness me rebrand this podcast. Change the audience avatar, and you're going to watch it grow. You're going to watch how much faster it grows, too, because of these changes. But I'm sharing this with you now. Number one, just to get this information to you so you can consider it for yourself. But number two, because I need your help. I need your feedback on two things. The new name and the new tile artwork. All right, so what is the new name? Drumroll, please. Within the next few weeks, this podcast grow, the show is going to become Chief Audience Officer. Chief Audience Officer is going to be the podcast that is here to help you build an audience of buyers. It is for business owners only. It is for business owners who are looking to build an audience. Audience is the key word that I will be building this show around because audience is humans, audience is people. You're going to hear me try not to use the word content because I cringe at that word, because content means filler. You're going to hear me use the word audience because audience is people. When you have an audience, people know who you are. When you have an audience, people are paying attention to you. People are giving you their attention. And when you have an audience, people buy your stuff. So Chief Audience Officer will be several things. It's going to be A, me sharing what I have learned about growing an audience. B, it's going to be me sharing with you the mistakes that I'm making as I aim to grow an audience and build a business that is fueled by an audience. And yes, of course, number three, I'm going to interview those who have audience driven businesses. And my goal is to get some of the biggest folks around to join me here on the show and speak specifically about their audience. How do they define their audience? How has audience changed the way that they operate their business? Who did they have to become to have an audience? And yes, of course, what are the tactics to build, grow, and maintain an audience in today's world? You will hear me talk about podcasts a lot because Chief Audience Officer is going to be a podcast. And sure, that's what I know about, but you're also going to start to hear me talk about other things, like sales funnels, like social media, which admittedly, I have a lot to learn about, like emailing and who knows what else. So that is the new name. I would love to know what you think about it, good, bad or ugly. And also I need you to help me pick a new tile. So if you go into the description or the show notes, there is a link where you can vote on the new podcast tile for Chief Audience Officer. And you'll notice that I'm breaking a rule that I told you that you should never break because I'm learning and I'm testing something new. So I have two requests. Request number one via the link in the show notes, click the link that asks you for feedback on the new name. It's a very simple form. I'd love to know what you think. Number two, click the link that asks you to vote for the podcast tile. Art for Chief Audience Officer. Would love to know what you think, what your favorite one is. And if you are a business owner who is looking to build an audience of buyers and you want to have your own audience driven business with lower marketing costs, easier sales and bigger impact, then you should subscribe because very soon grow the show will be Chief Audience Officer. My name is Kevin. I'll see you in the next one. 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're my most trusted production agency and recently they added an incredible service that you're gonna wanna 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 and 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.