Podcast Summary: Grow The Show – "Your Interviews Are Why Your Podcast Isn’t Growing"

Host: Kev Michael
Date: December 9, 2025
Theme: Why standard interview practices are stalling podcast growth and how to fix them.

Episode Overview

In this episode, Kev Michael dives deep into a hard truth for podcasters: defaulting to guest interviews—especially from cold pitches—is actively stalling your podcast’s growth. He debunks the myth that consistency and a backlog of guests equals success, provides a framework for curating impactful interviews, and challenges hosts to rethink what it means to deliver value to their audience.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. More Interviews Don’t Mean More Growth

• The Problem With Being “Booked Solid”
  • Many podcasters are proud of having interviews scheduled months out, yet their show’s metrics remain flat ([00:35]).
  • Kev shares:

    “If your show is not growing and you’ve already got six months of interviews recorded or booked, that means that you’ve locked yourself into six more months of not growing.” ([02:35])

• Consistency ≠ Growth
  • Podcasting advice often over-emphasizes publishing regularly and having systems, but Kev stresses, “If you have systemized your podcast before it is growing, you have systemized… not growth” ([03:26]).
  • Consistency is necessary, but not sufficient for audience expansion.

2. Guest Pitches Create a False Sense of Success

• Abundance of Pitches Doesn't Mean Quality
  • Due to online advice, business owners are flooding podcasts with guest pitches ([04:56]).
  • Most pitches originate from people seeking personal gain, not those equipped to give value to your audience.
• AI’s Impact on Guest Pitches
  • “What really ruined all of this is the advent of AI…AI tools simply scrape podcast feeds, find your email address, and…pitch that looks like it’s coming from a human who wants to be on your podcast but it isn’t.” ([06:09])
  • Your show isn’t being “discovered”, you’re being targeted.

3. The Top 1% Podcast Myth

• Download Numbers and Rankings Are Misleading
  • Many “top 1% podcasts” have almost no actual audience, since rankings are based on millions of inactive shows ([07:38]).
  • Both hosts and guests are often disappointed:

    “Both people eventually are going to be sad… the podcaster thinks… their show is going to grow. And all…guests think that that podcaster has a massive audience… Neither…are true.” ([09:10])

4. How To Fix Your Interview-Driven Show Structure

• Make a Clear Promise
  • Every podcast must have a clear “point A to point B”—serving a specific psychographic with a specific transformation ([11:20]).
    • Example:

      “The Grow the Show podcast helps business owners and creators who are struggling with podcast growth… so they can grow their audience and grow their business point blank, full stop.” ([12:06])

• Guest Screening Framework
  • Every potential guest must pass this filter:

    “How is me featuring this person…specifically going to help my audience…who’s all in point A get to point B?” ([12:33])

  • If you can’t clearly articulate this connection, don’t run the episode.
• Don’t Rely on Cold Pitches
  • Only consider cold-pitch guests if they’re an absolute "home run".
  • Proactively seek guests who are the best fit for your audience rather than passively accepting those who approach you.

5. The Celebrity Guest Fallacy

• Big Names Do Not Guarantee Discovery or Growth

  “If you have a celebrity on your show, the people who know who that celebrity is are not going to just magically discover your show… Think about your dream guest… What podcasts were they a guest on over the past year?… You probably can’t name most of them.” ([15:18])

6. Actionable Advice & Next Steps

• Audit Your Next 10 Interviews ([17:40])

  • For each, ask:
    • What is your podcast’s promise?
    • What is the point A and point B for your listener?
    • Does this interview help move them from A to B?
  • If not, “you can just not publish it… You can reach out and just say, ‘Hey, I’ve made adjustments to the show. Sorry, but this isn’t being published. It’s fine.’” ([18:56])

• Solo Episodes Are an Option

  • If you don’t want to do interviews, “do solo episodes. But from now on, you must only feature guests that align with your refined mission.” ([19:38])

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Overvaluing Guest Pitches:

  “Having lots of guest pitches and guests on your show is not a sign that your show is good at all. It’s a sign that your show exists.” – Kev Michael ([04:42])

• On Podcast Growth Strategy:

  “As soon as you launched that podcast, it became your job every week to provide [your audience] with something to get them closer to X.” ([13:38])

• On Celebrities as Guests:

  “The truth is, nobody is going to hear that episode with that person, no matter how famous they are.” ([15:34])

• On Show Structure:

  “If your show doesn’t make a promise, nobody’s going to tune in. And if your show breaks its promise, nobody’s going to tune in.” ([13:02])

Key Timestamps by Segment

• Guest Pitches and Stagnant Growth: [00:35] – [04:56]
• AI-Powered Pitch Spam: [06:09]
• The Top 1% Podcast Myth: [07:38]
• Making Your Podcast’s Promise: [11:20] – [12:06]
• Guest Screening Questions: [12:33]
• The Celebrity Fallacy: [15:18]
• Action Steps (Audit Interviews): [17:40] – [19:38]

Takeaways for Podcasters

• Having a full guest pipeline does not guarantee growth; it can actually lock you into stasis.
• Ramping up interviews based on cold pitches or guest requests is rarely a growth lever.
• Only run interviews when they tightly align with your show’s core promise and audience transformation.
• You can skip, reschedule, or cancel interviews that don’t meet this standard—your growth (and your audience) will thank you.

Host’s closing advice:

“From now on, you must only feature guests that align with your refined mission. … You have to adjust the structure of your show or else it’s not going to start growing.” ([20:10])

(Ads, intros, and outros excluded in this summary.)