← Podcasting Made Simple
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You're listening to Podcasting Made Simple. Recently, I was attending a podcasting conference, and I love going to these events. Not because of the sessions and the micro events happening inside of these big conferences, but what I really love is the hallways. I love networking, I love the community, and just as equally, I love asking unique questions. So my favorite question to ask a podcast host or guest at any of these events is this one. And, hey, what's the purpose behind your podcast right now? Or how far along on your purpose are you with what you're getting into podcast guesting for? And every time that the answer's kind of the same, it's kind of immediately like a. Oh, whoa. Like, you didn't just ask me how my day's going. You asked me something a little bit deeper. Right? So it kind of like breaks that mold. But again, what's the purpose behind your podcast right now or your podcast guesting right now? And the thing is, pretty much 100% of the time, I hear one of three things on both sides of the microphone. It's basically exactly the same. And this is the exact order I hear them in it. From a popularity standpoint, number one is I'm trying to get more listeners. Number two is I'm trying to monetize my podcast, or I'm trying to monetize my product or service. So I'm using guesting to do that. And the third thing is I'm trying to save time with building a brand or with marketing my business, and I'm using podcast guessing to do that. So it comes down to more listeners, more money, and more time. Right? That's, like, what it boils down to. And again, the question I asked was, what's the purpose behind your podcast right now? I want to share why I don't think that these answers, although they're harmless when people answer them, but why I don't think they actually are the real answer or the real purpose behind why somebody's podcasting. Hey, my name's Alex Sanfilippo, and if I've not met you before, I am so excited to spend this time with you today and to be able to share some ideas around reaching your podcasting goals faster. Now, first and foremost, whether you're a guest or host, this is going to be for you. And also, I want to share once again, that these three things are not wrong by any means, but I don't believe that they're actually the purpose. And here's why I say that when people start to get these things right, the more Listeners, the more money and more time in their lives. It still doesn't click. Something feels like it's missing, right? Like, people kind of are like, oh, yeah, I'm getting this, but, like, I think I need more of it, or maybe it needs to be faster or this or that, right? And we turn to things like AI or podcasting coaches, and both are great, but all the answers are right there, right? So it's like, there's not really any question. And for some reason, we still kind of, at the end of the day, like, why is this not clicking? Right? And to share a little bit deeper on that. I met somebody recently, has millions of people listening to a show. I asked them, what's the purpose right now for the show? It's to get more listeners. I'm like, okay, I met somebody also in this podcasting conference who just started. They have a handful of people listening to their show. Their goal is to get more listeners. And I was like, okay, like, what? How? Why? Like, when do you reach that, right? It's not really a purpose. It's not really a goal because there's nothing that it ties to. It's just more, more, more. And again, I don't really think that this is the right thing we should be focused on. And at the end of the day, what I've realized is these three things are mechanisms. They are not purpose. They're not a foundation. And so because they are just a mechanism, the mechanism itself can go on forever, right? You'll never be fully satisfied with what you have. Much like the person has millions of people listening, and the person has a handful, right? Like, when is enough enough? And we don't know unless we tie deeper than the mechanism itself. And this is the purpose. Now, before I go too deep here, I'm going to quickly just go back in time. Anybody else like me? Were you a why kid? Meaning you ask your parents or anybody around you why I'm raising my hand right now? Because the reality is, like, that was me to a T. My mom would say something, and I'd be like, why? Why, Mom? Why this? Why that? And listen, I was around before Google, so I'm dating myself, yes. But also, like, I don't know where this. This lady who's a saint, by the way, where she was getting her answers from, if she was just making them up, if she was going to encyclopedias or she just knew somebody that knew a bunch of stuff, or she was just a genius. I don't. I don't know what it was, but I was A Y kid and I. I've never done this, but at these conferences I go to, I've always wanted to ask that podcast guest or host why? And occasionally I do if it's somebody I know. But, like, I never go too deep because I don't want to get punched in the face. Now, what I mean by that is when someone says, I want to get more listeners. Why? So I can grow my brand. Why? So I can get more recognition. Why? So that I can just keep on drilling down to that. And listen, if you want me to summarize this whole Talk, I have 5 points for you today that I think are going to be really helpful. But if you want to just get to the core of it, just ask yourself why until you cannot answer it anymore. And that is your foundation. That is where you're getting started. And so for me, I think that having this purpose and having this idea of why you're trying to go for these other things, right? The listeners, the monetization, and saving your time, the reason, again, that purpose is a precursor to even doing the mechanisms. And let me share this with. What I mean by this is we think we're going to get more clarity along the way, right? We're like, oh, it'll come more clear. I'll just start going for more listeners, and I'll kind of figure out, like, the purpose behind and the threshold I need to reach all these things. But I don't really think that's true. I believe it's actually a precursor. We've got to spend the time doing this up front or wherever we are today, right? You could be years in a podcast on either side of the microphone. Today is the right time to start with this because it will directly reflect how much result we can yield. And that's one of my points I'm gonna get into today. So I'm gonna jump over to these five ideas here for reaching your podcasting goals on either side of the microphone faster. I encourage you take notes with this. All right, so number one, I'm gonna jump straight into it. Here is why having your purpose matters. Without connecting your purpose to your podcasting efforts, you're never going to be able to measure success. No matter what you do. There's no way to measure. I just mentioned that with the listeners, right? Like, how much is enough? Is it the millions? Is it the handful? Is it something in between? Like, what is it? There's no way to measure success if you've not connected a reason to the mechanism. And so for all of us, we've got to go beyond just saying, yeah, I. I think this is it. This is where I'm going, or I'll figure as I go along. You're never gonna reach any sort of goal. Right. There's that saying that unspecific goals yield unspecific results. That's a saying for a reason. It's because, like, you, you're not gonna ever get anywhere meaningful if you don't first decide, hey, this is the purpose behind what I'm doing. And to. To reinforce this a little bit further. We've all met somebody who just seems to, like, get it right. Like anything they do. It's like, man, this thing just takes off. It accelerates, it goes. How are they doing? That is because they took the time to set a proper foundation. They didn't just start and say, I'll see where it goes. They said, this is what I think's going to happen. This is what I want to happen, and this is my purpose behind it. And now let's get into it and see what happens. Right? It gives them a north star, it gives them a compass. It's their anchor. It's something they can tie to and listen. Yes, more clarity comes as you get into stuff. It changes, it evolves. But the reality is you're working on the foundation instead of building something and saying, I'll get back to the foundation later. Right? So we've got to first and foremost say, okay, I'm starting with the foundation. I don't know if anyone's ever lived in a house where you didn't start with the foundation. Right. It doesn't really work that way, especially when you're trying to build an empire on top of or something really big through your podcast. Your podcast. Guesting. Okay, number two, how to define and get clarity around your purpose. How to define and get clarity around your purpose. I'm just going to say something really bold here, y'. All. AI cannot do this for you. Listen, I'm. I'm a big fan of AI, Use it for all kinds of things. But I'm telling you, if you're like, hey, AI, I'm going to delegate my purpose to you. Yeah, you're gonna figure it out and you're gonna make it for me. Yikes. It's not a good idea. I can promise you it's not gonna work. Now, it can help you a little bit along the way, fleshing it out and stuff like that, but you've got to be willing to do this. And the best way to do this is get pen and paper. Go somewhere you're inspired and just write it out. Pen and paper, right? Not digital device where you can get distracted and be like, ooh, well, what if it was this? What if it was that? Because then you start dreaming. Just pen and paper, where your mind can't wander too far from just what's right in front of you, right? That goes a really long way. Now, purpose is twofold. And I'm. I'll share my story about like really fighting this notion for such a long time. But there's two, two purposes or two sides of it. One is your internal purpose. Why are you doing this for yourself? And listen, that can be to. To gain recognition, to get more exposure for myself, or to. To be financially free to. To make a better life for my family or to reclaim such so much of my time. It can be these things, right? And internal can be a little bit selfish. It can be for you. But just as important, if not more important, is your external purpose. Why are you doing this for others? And listen, for me, this one's more important. Like my internal purpose, great, I have it. But I've tried to tie it to my external purpose. And I feel that the better you get at that, the better that your purpose works out. So you got your internal one for you, but external, why am I doing this for others? Because I want people to know what's possible for their lives. Because I want people to be able to understand this. I want people to break through here, right? Like, why are you doing it for somebody else? And again, as I mentioned, I fought this for a long time. I was like, man, external purpose only. No internal purpose, right? But that's just not the reality of it. We've got to have something for ourselves as well so we can feel filled up so that we can pour in and give to others, right? The more important one is what you're doing for others. If you let that inform how you receive as well, it can work really well. But again, I fought this for a long time, but people way smarter than me and have really explained this well to me. I've learned that, like, you know what? I've got to have something here for me too. It's important I take care of myself because I can't take care of my. Of others if I don't take care of me as well. So again, you've got to really think internal, external purpose. And it's really important. Again, you go somewhere, you feel inspired. Don't use AI, right? Pen and paper. Write it out. And again, this can change over time, but you've got to have some sort of foundation, because if you don't, I feel like we get lost again. It's our North Star. It's our compass. It's where we're going, right? Okay, number three. This is how to know you're doing it right. How to know if you're getting it right. How to know if you've got the purpose in the right direction. How to know if your clarity is actually getting clear. Right? The single best way to do this is to talk to people. To talk to people. If you're a podcast host, find a way to talk to listeners. If they're commenting on anything, they're emailing you, they're messaging you. If you just know somebody who's listening, talk to them. If you're a podcast email guest, find the person at a coffee shop that you say, this person is just like, who I want to be talking to on a podcast. Then guess what? Go talk to them. I know, it feels weird, right? But we've got to be willing to talk to the people that we're saying. I'm ultimately on this world to serve these people. This is my external purpose. This is who I'm after, right? This is who I want to serve. You've got to find those individuals wherever you can, preferably in real life, right? Not just messaging back and forth. Like, even if it has to be a. I guess a video conference call would work, but something like that, or where you can talk to these people. Because the fastest way to know if you're getting something right or wrong is to talk to the people that, once again, you serve. And like me growing up as a kid, being a Y kid, right? You want to dig deep. You want to find out what they're struggling with. You want to stop guessing. You want to start listening to these people to figure out, like, hey, this is what they got going on. And I've been thinking about it this way. I need to shift my perspective a little bit, because now that I've talked to the people that I say this is for, I'm realizing I might not be going fully the right direction. You go back to that foundation, make it firmer, make it stronger, right? And you continue building upon it. But I'm telling you, this third step is the one that I find most people want to skip. People don't want to talk to people. They just want to get. Get down, into build mode, or I'm focused. When I get my thousand listeners, then I'll talk to people right like, no, no, no, talk to them now. Figure out where you're going. See if you're going the right direction. Because the thing is, you might be veering off course and you don't know it because you've not talked to the person that you say, this is who I serve. Coffee shops are great, libraries are great. And any sort of meetup groups in your city, anything like that is great. If you can find the people once again that mirror who you say I'm doing this for, talk to them. Get inside their mind. Ask them why, right? Dig deep. Because the better you do that, the more you can know, hey, I'm heading in the right direction. Okay, number four, how long does it take to see results and how to accelerate that timeline? I had to do both these things here in this one, right? Because, like, everyone wants to know, like, well, how long is this going to take? But not only that, well, how can I make it faster? Right? Like, that's the world we live in. And so I'm going to share both sides of this with you. The amount of time it's going to take is directly connected to your ability to provide clarity on the problem that you solve. To provide clarity on the problem that you solve. So, like, how well can you connect what you do to the problem you solve and give that clearly, right? And so what I mean by that is if your website, if I go to it, it's. And it's got 25 things that you do. But I'm the person that you met in the coffee shop that you said you serve, and I'm looking there, and now I'm lost and confused. You need a lot of people to visit to find that one right thing that you say, this is my purpose. This is what I do. And these other 24 things are distractions, right? Like now you need a whole bunch of people to show up because everywhere you're like, hey, it's a maze. Figure it out. You'll find it, right? So again, your ability to see results fast and to even accelerate that timeline is to get more clear on the problem that you solve and to make it what you. The only thing you do. Which brings me like another sub point here, and it's this word, focus. We have to stay focused. But I use the word focus as an acronym. Follow one course until successful. Follow one course until successful. The more focused you can be in this way saying, hey, this is the one thing that I do. And you have that singular focus. And you just keep on following that. You keep on getting more clear on that problem you solve. And that's the only problem you solve, man. It's not going to take long, right? That will accelerate that timeline really, really quick. And this, this last, like, sub point I'll share here is your success is directed to how little you do really well. How little you do really well. It's not about how much you do at an okay level. What are you known for? At one point, when I got into podcasting and started really kind of building reputation in this space and we created podmatch, it started doing really well. And I realized, okay, Pod Match is sweet, but I got like, these 15 other things people were starting to ask me for. Let's start building them all out. I wasn't known for anything in a period of my time, of my life in podcasting. Right. My career in podcasting, I was like kind of the. The jack of all trades. And so I was helping a little bit here and here and here and kind of doing this, kind of doing that kind of helping. And then I realized it's about how little I do really well, how little I do really well. Now the only thing I have is Pod Match. And when someone's like, ooh, you do great with this. Nope, I don't do that. You'd be really great with that. Nope, I don't do that. Nope, I don't do anything. All I do is Pod Match. And we have narrowed in so much, we won't even accept affiliate commission outside, we won't period. We don't accept affiliate commission. The only way I get paid is through Pod Match memberships, through Pod Match premium subscriptions. That is the only way I get paid. And we have done that by design because I do a really good job delivering value for that. But I don't know if I do deliver value for anything else. So you know what? I don't wanna make money any other way. That is the only way I. I bring in revenue. And now, listen, for your business, for your podcast might not be about money, or it might, might be, right? But whatever it is, what is that one thing, that little bit that you do really well, and how can you hone in on that and just push the rest out? The rest of it becomes distraction for me. If I see money coming in through other things, it distracts my mind. So I said, no, no money, except for from this one thing, so that my mind stays focused on how do I serve these people. The only way I'm making money, the only way I'm. I'm. I'm being able to keep my lights on, right. I going to serve them to the best of my ability. So again, that's that fourth point. That's how you accelerate this timeline, right? I, I've got two call to actions for you here, by the way, and I encourage you, right? Write these down. These are two different URLs. I'm going to give you two different links. They're both episodes of this podcast. Being able to do this really well is getting your messaging right and getting your call to action. Right? And so I'm going to give you both these things right now. And I, I share these a lot because they're real. I think they're really good resources. If you go to podmatch.com ep and it's 3, 2, 7, podmatch.com ep327. The other one is also podmatch.com ep 3, 4, 2, on your own time, go check these out. So that's 3, 2, 7 and 3, 4, 2. Again, this is your messaging, this is your call to action. Getting these right, I'm telling you, will really set in motion how you can see results much, much faster. Okay, now on to the fifth and final point here. Number five is, is learning to enjoy the process. Learning to enjoy the process. I think for many of us, this is absolutely the hardest part, but it's because we're so focused on the mechanisms. We're focused on more listeners, we're focused on more money, we're focused on saving our time. Right. Instead of focusing on the actual foundational level. Right. The purpose behind it, why we're actually doing this. And I found that when you can really remember that more than anything else, your internal and external purpose, and you can see, you know, I'm making results there happen, like, I'm making things happen. I'm making moves like I'm further today than I was yesterday. Like, I can keep on moving. When you do this, you can actually learn to really enjoy the process instead of saying, more downloads, more money, more time, like. Cause when you're focused on that, it's, it's, again, it's always moving. It's never going to be enough. But when you say, you know what, Today I hit a milestone. Like, I talked to somebody I'd never talked to before, and I found out that their life was changed from one of my episodes or as a guest. They bought my book and then they rolled my course and they sent me an email saying how much it's helped them. Like, that's huge. That ties back to my purpose. I Got into this to serve somebody. I got into this to help somebody. Right? Practical ways to do this, by the way, are to reflect regularly. Sit down. For me, every 90 days, I have something. My calendar is sit down and just think about the last 90 days. I go through my daily planner, my journal. I just look to see, like, man, that was a really big win. That was cool. I'm going to celebrate that. So document the process, right? So, like, when you're reflecting, you have something you can look back to. So make sure you're documenting along the way. That goes really well. And then celebrate every micro win that you can. Every day. You need to find a reason to celebrate life. You need to find a reason to celebrate your work. Get out there and just say, you know what? Today I got to hear from a listener. Today I had someone buy my book. Today I got a little bit better about clarifying what I actually do to serve people. Find a way to celebrate those micro wins. Because every day, if you have something to celebrate, life becomes a lot of fun, right? I don't mean go out and go crazy, right? But just something little. Something little to remind yourself, you know what? I did good today. Like, my goal. I'm getting closer to my purpose and what I set them out here to do. At the end of the day, the last reminder I'm going to give everybody as I close here is this quote. With clarity comes victory. With clarity comes victory. All these five things, they just get you closer and closer to this idea of clarity. And ultimately, that's what's going to lead you to being victorious in the goal, in the purpose that you have behind podcasting in the first place. And then when some weirdo like me asks you at a conference, hey, what's the purpose behind your podcast? You have a really cool answer, and I actually look forward to having that conversation with you. So I hope this was really helpful for you today and I just thank you so, so much for spending this time with me. Again, my name's Alex Sanfilippo. Keep podcasting. For more episodes, please visit podmatch.com episodes thank you so much for listening.