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If your podcast is not growing, that means that your podcast has a skill deficiency. What I mean by that is whoever is working on your show is missing one or multiple skills on how to make it grow. Your podcast is not going to start growing until all of the necessary skills are present. This is Grow the show, the podcast that grows your podcast. I am Kev Michael. I am your podcast growth coach. And today I'm going to describe to you two very common situations that I see podcasting entrepreneurs in where their show is stuck and they have these skill deficiencies and they don't realize it. And odds are you are in one of these two scenarios. And really what it comes down to is your podcast isn't growing either because you are doing everything yourself and there is a key skill that you are missing, or you. You've delegated everything and systemized failure. Either way, you are missing critical skills and awareness required for your podcast to grow. Now, my goal for you today is that by developing a baseline understanding of the podcast growth skill stack and either mastering it yourself or hiring for those skills, you'll be able to stop wasting time and money on a show that is stuck, and instead, you'll build a podcast that finally grows and. And drives meaningful results and business. So the reason this comes up today and the reason I'm sharing this one audio only, because I find that the audio ones are easier for me to just share complex, more advanced stuff. That stuff doesn't do as well on YouTube. So the 201 stuff goes here on the audio feed. I've had a lot of calls lately of entrepreneurs who are interested in working with us at Grow the Show and joining either the Grow the Show accelerator or the Grow the Show Academy. And. And what I've noticed lately is that virtually every single podcasting entrepreneur that I speak with falls into one of two camps. Either, number one, it is a solo podcaster who is doing everything themselves. Now, note, they may not be a solopreneur. They might have a business where they have employees, but for the podcast specifically, they're doing everything themselves. Or you are a solopreneur doing everything themselves. And either way, all of the stuff comes from you. The recording, the editing, the designing, the promoting, and. And really, none of it, or not enough of it is being done at a high level. So that's situation one, where it's a solo podcaster. They're stretched pretty thin. They're doing everything themselves. And if I'm being quite honest, I look at what they're doing and they're trying hard they're doing their best, but it's just not good enough for them to grow. The second is actually a little more confusing to the person. It is a high level entrepreneur who generally runs a business or owns a business that is more advanced. And that person gets on a call with me and they brag about how they only spend one hour per week on their podcast. And they're like, oh, I've got everything systemized. I batch my content, I only spend one hour a week on the show. I hire this agency, I have this team. And the thing is, the show isn't growing at all. So I'm just like, you have systematized failure. You have made something efficient before, you made it effective. It is not efficient to make something effective, you must make it work first, then you must make it efficient. Now, in both of those cases, the podcast doesn't grow at all because the creator of the podcast lacks one, one or more of the critical skills. And here's the key. The podcast stays stuck because the creator lacks one or more of these critical skills. But here's the key part behind it. You, as the creator of the podcast, do not need to become world class at all of the required skills it takes to grow a podcast. You don't have to be the best at all of them, but if you are doing it solo, you need to be really good at all of them. So I'm talking everything from having a deep understanding of your audience, packaging your episodes in the right way. So that's titles, that's thumbnails, having amazing introductions, understanding psychology and persuasion and click triggers and why people click on things, mastering retention, so mastering storytelling and keeping people paying attention to what you're saying. Having the sense to digress when it makes sense, but not digress too much that you lose people's attention. The ability to stay on a topic and stay focused and have the discipline to continue serving one specific audience in avatar. The. The promotional pieces. If you're making thumbnails, it's graphic design, it's understanding the visual piece of it. If you're on YouTube, it's video editing and it's understanding how to not video edit too much and not make it look dumb and clunky like a 2 year old did it. But also not making it too crazy that it becomes distracting. It's the promotion after the fact. It's hooking it all up to a sales funnel, getting people to go from consuming the podcast onto the sales funnel. And the reality is there's more than that as well. There's More skills involved. So. So if you are a solo person doing this all by yourself, know that you have to get really good at all of those things in order for your show to start growing. Because here's the other thing. A podcast is not like social media. If you spend an hour scrolling Instagram reels, over the course of that hour, you probably see between 100 to 200 creators videos because you skip a lot of them. Now think about it from a podcast perspective. If you spend an hour listening to a podcast, you consume content from one creator. So somebody who spends eight hours a week scrolling on social media consumes content from literally over a thousand creators. Somebody who spends four hours a week listening to podcasts generally listen to four or five creators. Podcasting is winner take all because there's just not enough room in people's week to consume from that many creators. So in order for your podcast to win, it must supplant other podcasters. You must be in somebody's top five podcasts. It has to be that good, which means you have to win. Think about what your five favorite shows are. Your show has to be better than theirs. So this is why you see people who have a decent following on Instagram and aren't that good at it, because there's just more opportunity because people scroll and see so many pieces of content. There is not room in podcasting for a lot of people to have huge audiences because people just don't consume that much podcast content. It is the nature of the beast. So if you are going to do this, if you are going to take all this life force of yours and this money and this time and this attention and this energy and this concern and put all of it into this podcast. It is not going to grow unless it is really freaking good. Unless it is people's favorite podcast. It is one of their top five. If you currently have between 150 and 200 people consuming your show on a weekly basis, you are in those 100 and 200 people's top five, because those people know you personally. So if your best friend had a podcast, that would be in your top five, because they are your best friend. But if they're a complete stranger, there's no way that they're gonna be in your top five. And that's what's happening. Hey, we'll be right back to the show. But if you've been podcasting for more than a month and your show still isn't growing, you're probably stuck in what I call the friends and family zone. That Means the only people listening are the ones who already know you personally, and you haven't yet figured out how to get strangers to listen like your show, subscribe and become your loyal audience. And guess what? That is not going to just magically change. The days of just being consistent and your show eventually blowing up are totally over. Your show is not going to grow unless you implement a clear growth plan that you fully understand before you start it. Now, the Grow the Show accelerator is the program that I have built and refined over the past seven years to help podcasters like you finally get growing. And the best part is, we've got versions of the program to fit every budget and every level of support that you need. So the only real reason your podcast wouldn't grow from here on out is you're okay with it staying a show for just your friends and family. But if you're not okay with that and you want a proven plan to finally grow your audience, then head to growtheshow.com apply or click the link in the show notes. So once again, go to growtheshow.com apply and let's get your show growing. So in order for your show to start growing and to start making headway, your show has to be really good. And in order for your show to be really good, all of the required skills in growing and monetizing and making an amazing show must be present. So if you are doing everything completely solo, you have to become a really good graphic designer and a really good thumbnail maker. Not just Canva templates that look really clunky. People are not going to click on those. Your video editing has to be smooth. It doesn't have to be too complicated. But. But it can't look like somebody who has no idea what they're doing in a video editor threw it all together. And most importantly, you have to understand the marketing of it all. You have to understand the positioning. You have to understand your audience. And if you don't have those things, you either need to learn them all yourself or you need to outsource this stuff to people who do know. But here's the kicker. For you entrepreneurs who take pride in hiring everything out and getting other people to do your work, there are a lot of times where that is massive leverage. But where that is not massive leverage is. Is where you don't know enough about the skill that you are hiring. To hold people accountable and to direct delegation without direction is expensive failure. It is abdication. And at that point, you're just hiring someone and you're just like I don't know. It looks like they know what they're talking about. I really hope they do. Cause I'm giving them all this money, and I really have no way to know whether they know. And I'm not going to find out until this is done and the money's gone and your show didn't grow. And it's a combination of, number one, you can't receive work from those people and accurately judge it and say, this is good enough to grow my show, or send it back and be like, this is what needs to change in order for my show to grow. If you don't have that understanding, you're gonna continue working your way through agencies and coaches and employees and contractors and vas just thinking the next one is going to be the one that does it. But it's not, because you don't understand how to grow a podcast. So I share this rant today because, I don't know, I've just been on a lot of calls lately with people who either want to keep doing everything themselves, and they just have so far to go when it comes to video editing. I'm like, I understand you're trying to save money here, but you are not good at video editing, and you doing this is the single thing that is holding your show back. And I know that you don't want to invest in a video editor until you know for sure that your podcast is going to make money. But I promise you, your podcast is not going to make money until you invest in a video editor. And there's no way for you to know for sure. If that were possible, if it were possible to grow an audience of people who pay you tons and tons of money, if it were possible to do that without any risk, everybody would do it, right? And again, the same thing is true with the entrepreneurs where I'm like, I understand you don't want to take the time to learn these skills. And no, I'm not saying you have to be a video editor yourself for the rest of your days. I get that you are a successful CEO who runs a business and delegates everything. But those things that you delegate, you understand well. And this thing you do not understand well, you need to go back into beginner mode and be willing to learn the skills and learn the basics of how a podcast grows and monetizes. And until you have that knowledge, you, the person who is hiring and making the show and creating for people, until you have that knowledge, your entire team that you hire is going to fail. So I share this rant because it's been a long week of calls, and I just really want you to understand this, because if your show is not growing, it means there is a skill deficiency within your podcast, whether within you or whether within the team that you have hired. And either way, whether you're completely solo or you do have help or you plan to have help in the future, you. You at least need to have the fundamental understanding of all of these skills in order for your podcast to grow. In order for you to direct podcast growth. Without that level of understanding, your show will continue to not grow, and you will continue to not be sure why it's not growing. So, again, the number one sign that you have a skill deficiency that needs correcting is that your show is not growing, and you don't understand why it's not growing. If you don't, that's what needs to change. So, as I said, this rant was because I'm seeing a lot of people who don't get this, and I just want you guys to get this, because whether or not you acquire the skills from me, you need to do it. If your show's gonna grow, and if you're not gonna acquire the skills, you should stop podcasting, because it's just pouring time, energy, and money down the drain. It is not this magical thing like all my competitors say it is. Wouldn't it be great if you just had a podcast that gets you clients? It's. No, it's hard, man. This is not that easy. They're just trying to sell you a 10k package. So, listen, you don't have to learn it from me, but you're going to have to understand these skills in order to make this thing work. So take a hard look at what you're doing and say, okay, am I willing to do what is required to at least get a fundamental understanding of these skills so that my show can grow and I can look back at this investment that I've made and say, yes, this was a good call. If not, you should just stop. Okay, all right. That's gonna do it for today. That's gonna do it for this episode. For what it's worth, this week, I did a live masterclass with about 60 people that dug into what the four skills are to grow and monetize a podcast. It was honestly the most electric live presentation I've done in a long time. It was super fun. So much so that there has been so much demand to do it again that I'm doing it again this coming Tuesday. So I'm recording this on Friday, October 24, 2025. So on the day that this is being published, which is Tuesday, October 28th, I'm going to be doing it at 2pm Eastern. So if it is before 2pm Eastern on the 28th, click the link in the show notes and you can join us there. We'd love to have you. I'm going to be digging into the exact skills that you need to get your podcast unstuck that either you need to develop or you need to hire somebody who has. So that's going to happen later today. And if you're hearing this episode after October 28, 2025, there's a good chance I'm going to do this presentation again. So click the link in the show notes. If I am going to be doing this session again within the next few weeks, it will be on there and you will be able to register there. So click the link in the show notes. Would love to have you there at the end. I do talk about my program, but I promise you it is super tactical. You are actually going to learn from it. It is not going to just be a really long sales pitch. People were pretty blown away by that this week and I would love to share it with you as well. So either way, regardless of whether or not you work with me, regardless of whether or not you come to my live session, that'll teach you the four skills that you need. You gotta have them. So stick around to grow the show and learn the skills over time or, I don't know, do something that's gonna do it. For today. My name is Kev Michael. I'm your podcast growth coach and I'll see you next time.