← Podcast Answer Man
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Just over 10 years ago in 2016, I helped a student launch a podcast through my four week training program that I had at the time called Podcasting A to Z. This was a four week program where I gave people unlimited access to me as their coach as I guided them through every step in the process of launching a podcast. And for this story, I want to tell you about this particular student and I'm going to call him Bill, though that is not his real name. Over the four weeks of that particular session, Bill and I developed a very strong relationship. I very much resonated with the work that he was bringing to life. He was 62 years old at the time and he wanted to create a library of leadership content that people could access on their own schedule while he was building a more virtual business that was less dependent on his own physical presence, working one on one with clients and at a deeper level. What he was hoping that this podcast would do is create a new way of working that would give him and his wife more time together and greater freedom to choose where in the world they lived and how they lived. By the end of our four weeks of the course, he had certainly successfully launched his podcast and he continued to produce that show for many years. And after our season of working together in the course of once I had confirmed everything was up and running and off to the races, our interaction slowly faded. Now more than 10 years has passed since we last connected. Had any sort of meaningful one on one conversation between us until this past week. One thing that I recently recognized is that he has remained on my email list this entire time for more than a decade. But I do not have any evidence at all that he's been listening to my podcast consistently or even at all during this period of time. The only thing that I noticed is that recently I sent out an email notifying my email email list about my new mastermind group called Next Level Mastermind Momentum. If you're interested, you can find out details over@cliffravenscraft.com Momentum well, when I sent that email out, a large number of people were intrigued enough to click the link to the landing page that explains exactly how this particular mastermind group is different from those that I've been facilitating over the past 15 years. And being the relationship focused marketing person, meaning that I prefer to grow my business through personalized relationship and conversation, I took an approach to reach out to each and every person who clicked on that link in my email. And before reaching out to any of them, I went digging into my archives. Who are these names and several of them stood out. And of course, Bill's name instantly stood out, because I do remember the depth of conversation we had back then. So he was one of the first people that I reached out to. And then what happened was I was able to bring in some of the things that I recalled from our original conversation. And I said, hey, Bill, I was recently looking at some of my email newsletter reports. I noticed your name on the report that says you're one of the people who clicked on Next Level Mastermind Momentum. I'm not suggesting that Momentum is something that's a good fit for you, but at least brought your name to my attention. And it reminded me of our time that we spent together in podcasting A to Z. And I went back into my archives and I looked at some of our conversations, and I'm interested in learning, did you end up creating the freedom that you were looking to create? And by the way, I've even gone in and I've looked at your content. I see that you've produced X number of episodes that you've continued to do this. I also saw some of your more recent websites that show the work that you're doing in the world. Everything appears that you have developed exactly what you had envisioned. And so I'm more than anything, just eager to hear an update. Well, I got a response. And in that email, he says, well, Cliff, at the time, I was 62 when I took your course, and I am now 73 years old, and here is how my life has unfolded. And he went on to say that his podcast is responsible for helping him achieve much of what he wanted to achieve. And he went on to tell me about some of the great experiences he's had over the past decade. And he says, but now I'm here at the age of 73, and I'm facing a threshold in my life. I'm facing some decisions about what being more or doing more looks like in this season. And so he shared some personal things. And I'm like, you know what? This is exactly the type of work that I'm doing today. And he's aware of that. He's been following my transition. In fact, I recall one of the phrases. He says, cliff, I just want to say how much I appreciate you answering all the mundane technical questions, because I know that you would much rather be speaking into the questions that are at a much deeper level. The business strategy, the mindset stuff. I know that's where you're heading, and so I appreciate all of this. So he knew that this is the type of work that I was doing. And so when he revealed to me where he is today at 73 and what he's facing and what he's pondering, I offered him a one on one paid coaching session. And he wrote back and he says, absolutely, hands down, give me the link. I will get that scheduled right away. I can't wait to have this conversation with you. And in that same email he says, cliff, I just want to let you know that I was just. This prompted me to go back to your podcast and it became obvious to me by the context that episode 819 was the cliff Ravenscraft show. Which by the way, you can find at the thecliffe ravenscraftshow.com if you're not aware of that other podcast. But anyway, he says, I just recently went back and was looking through your archives and I scrolled through and I saw this title, episode 819. Why more listeners won't fix your business. And I won't share with you the exact quote of what he said, but let's just say it this way, it had impact. That's it. Now the interesting thing about this is that episode 819 was published several months ago on April 27, 2026. This is all occurring in late July 2026. And by the time he found that particular episode and listened to it, I was preparing to record episode number 832. So when this reaching out to him and saying, hey, I saw your name, it got me to thinking about our relationship that we had 10 years ago, what you were building. I'd love to hear what's going on. All of a sudden it's like, wow, this is more than just an email newsletter update I got from Cliff Ravenscraft in my inbox. This is more than just I wonder what his momentum mastermind is. Here, let me click on this. Man, Cliff's kind of recalled our conversation. This is amazing. And so sure, I'm going to reach out and I'm going to reply to him. And by the way, Cliff, that prompted me, the whole exchange here has prompted me to reacquaint myself with the content and to see where you've, you know, what you're doing in the world. And I know that before he said, cliff, yes, I want to book that paid session with you. He listened to episode 819 first. So the interesting thing is that he did not choose my newest episode. He didn't start with the most recent episode in the archive. No. What did he do? He went through and scanned the titles of episodes and looking for one that would clearly speak to what he is facing in the moment. And then after listening, he said something along the lines of it hit him square in the face. I need to have a conversation with you. That's amazing. You know, the interesting thing is that this archive of content, this body of work that I've been producing and developing over the years, gives people that exposure to the current version of my thinking, to the current version of the work that I'm doing in the world, and the way that I show up and the way that I help people today. And in this case, episode 819 of the Cliff Ravenscraft show, produced months ago, opened the door to a deeper conversation about what is going on in Bill's life today. Now, we are booked for that session. In fact, it's happening tomorrow at 3:30pm Eastern Time as I'm recording this today on Wednesday, July 29th. Now, by the time this is in the feed, if you're one of those people who listen to this right as it comes out on Friday morning, Bill and I may actually be having this conversation as you're listening to this, but I want to just say this. Your episodes may have a publication date, but if you're intentional about the content that you create, they never have an expiration date. I have had people in multiple different shows. I've produced over 55 shows, over 5,000 episodes, and I, over the years have routinely heard people say, cliff, I found you when you were on episode number 200 and some odd number. And I went back and started listening from episode one. Eventually caught up, took me several months, and I've been listening to you ever since. I've heard that story so many different times. There is no expiration date. Now, there may be some podcasts where the format of the show is late breaking news and stuff like that. And maybe that content isn't evergreen. But if you're intentional about creating content that is not only valuable today, but will still be valuable six or seven months from now, or six or seven years from now, and in some case, maybe two or three decades from now, it's pretty powerful to think about just how much value that your body of work in the archives of your podcast brings both to you and those who might find you today. There are a couple of quotes that I want to share with you, and as I reflect on this story, the first one is every podcast episode you publish becomes an asset in your archive, available to meet the right person at the right moment, even if that moment is months or years after you recorded it if you are in a stage where you're thinking, man, you know what? It just seems like there's only about two or three hundred people who are currently downloading each episode. Well, keep publishing, my friend. And by the way, we won't go into this episode on the whole idea of that word only in front of two or three hundred people. I'm not gonna go on my soapbox on that one just today. But if you have had any thought along those lines, oh, there's only 60 or 70 people who are downloading, just know this. Every single piece of content you put into your archives is an asset. That may be the one episode. And you never know which episode someone will need or when they will need it. You know, it got me to thinking about as content creators, what can we predict? Well, I know what we can't predict predict. We can't predict which episode somebody's going to choose when they find our podcast. We have no idea to predict how old that episode will be. When they click to listen, we don't know which title is going to capture their attention. We also can't predict what life circumstance is going to be going on for them that's going to make that message land at that moment. There's just too much at play here, and we sometimes just have to trust that this episode is going to land with somebody in a way that we could have never intended, but it just seems to work out that way. And of course, we can never really predict what relationship or what opportunity might just emerge at some point after you hit publish. And it might be months or even years and in some cases decades later. If there's anything that you can predict is your level of commitment to continuing to publish that content, your level of commitment to creating meaningful content. And you can do a few things to be a little bit more intentional about making sure the titles of your episodes speak to the heart of the message, and maybe that those show notes are interesting enough and compelling enough to say, yep, this is the episode you want to listen to. If there's one thing that I'll leave you with in what may be the shortest episode of Podcast Answerman, it's this. Your newest episode will likely receive most of your attention in the coming days or weeks ahead, but it may be an episode that you published months or even years ago that will create the greatest value for someone tomorrow. I trust that that's going to land with you today. Podcast and some man. Oh, and hey, before you go, if you happen to have some sort of desired outcome, something you want to be a part of your life, your next season of your life that's not currently a part of your life and you're very clear about what that is. You are pretty certain about why it's important to you but maybe you're just unclear of the options that are available to you. Maybe you are clear about a lot of options but you would like to brainstorm with some folks and get some clarity and insight as a result of somebody asking you some questions, helping you see things from a perspective that you're not able to see on your own. That is exactly why I do the coaching that I do and why I facilitate the next level Mastermind Momentum Group if you would like to learn more about the work that I'm doing in the world I would encourage you first to check out cliffravenscraft.com Momentum if you're interested. You'll know how to reach out to me. Until next time. I encourage you to take everything you do to the next level.