← The How To Podcast Series - Podcast Co-Hosts, Practical Podcast Tips, and Podcast Community
The How To Podcast Series - Podcast Co-Hosts, Practical Podcast Tips, and Podcast Community
E573 - Permission to Stay Small and Happy with Your Podcast
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Okay, we're rolling. Hey, welcome back to the how to Podcast series. It's Dave with you. Hope you're doing well. I want to give you permission like you need it, but I think we need to talk about it. The idea that you can have a small and happy podcast and you don't need to do what all the gurus are telling you to do, all the marketing people, all the Instagram people, all the podcasts about podcasting people. You can simply be a podcaster and just do it for fun without all of the strings attached. And you're not a second class podcaster because you don't do all of the things you hear about on all the other shows. You can simply podcast for fun and have no worries about all the things that you're not doing. You're not going to hear this stuff on a lot of other podcasts, I'll put it that way. Because they're all trying to sell you something. They have links, they have affiliate links, they have things, they have courses and all this stuff to sell you, you're not going to get that here. So welcome to the show and let's take some of that weight off your shoulders. You can be a small and happy podcast and not have to do all the things. Here we go. I listen to a lot of podcasts about podcasting so that you don't have to. There's a lot of podcasts about podcasting that have an agenda. Some of them are based on blogs, so it's a fact that you must be a blogger. And then they talk about podcasting, or it's an Instagram show and then they talk about podcasting, or it's a Facebook show and they talk about podcasting. It's a live streaming show and they talk about podcasting. There's a lot of podcasts out there that start from a place of what they're familiar with and then they tack podcasting onto it. Instead of a show that's about podcasting, and that's all it's about, podcasting. So the whole idea, for example, that every episode must have a blog post that goes with the episode, like a complete write up, an article that goes along with the content is mandatory. And I hear this on many, many shows. And what I don't like about that is, well, first, I'm not a writer, I'm a podcaster. So I don't do a blog post for every single episode of my show. I find that to be irrelevant and I don't have time for that. And I don't Feel guilty for not doing it, it's fine. I don't feel the need to promote every episode on social media because I'm not a social media guy. I really don't have that as a focus. And I really don't engage on social media the way other people want me to. So I don't get out and promote my episodes. I don't talk about my guests every. Every time an episode goes live. I don't post five posts every 72 hours and do all the things that other people tell me that I have to do. As a podcaster, what I find is the topic of podcasting comes at the expense of or at the end of a topic around social media or blogging, or fill in the blank. And it feels like when you go to podcasting conferences that if you're not doing what everyone else is doing, you're being left behind. It's like you're being relegated to the back of the room, the back of the bus, where all of you misfit podcasters, you don't fit into all of the, the most popular, up to date things about your podcast, all these additional things, you don't fit in. And you guys go hang out with yourselves. Because when we talk about AI and we talk about podcasting 2.0 and we talk about microphones and we talk about Instagram and we talk about live streaming and we talk about blogging and on and on and on, it's like, where are the classes for podcasters, you know, the people who podcast? What's all this other stuff? And why is this overtaking conferences and meetups and events? And why is all the money in that? Why? Because people spend a lot of money in that. And the whole idea of just having a show for the fun of it seems to be like a unicorn and in podcasting. But I'm here to awaken the unicorns here. I think we need to talk about this. As a podcaster, I want you to know, especially if you're just starting out, that you can podcast just for the love of podcasting and be done with it. That's like, that's it. You don't have to do all these other things. They might have some benefit to you, they might help your podcast to grow, but if you're just podcasting for the fun of it, podcast growth isn't really your main focus. You just want a podcast. Curiosity, creativity, connection and joy are valid endpoints and goals for you as a podcaster. You can just do it for that. A hobby podcast is not less than A business podcast. Even though I hear that if you don't, if your podcast doesn't generate income and become a business, you're not a successful podcaster. I've actually heard those words. I beg to differ. Your podcast, in many ways, gives you the freedom just to do what you want to do and not be held or accountable to anybody. You don't need to justify your show with downloads, sponsorships being the topic of conversation at a conference. The fact that you enjoy making a podcast should be and can be enough without worrying about all of this other stuff. So that's why in this show, we really focus in on the independent podcaster who doesn't have a team of 20. You don't have money that comes to you for every episode. No, you're doing this because you want to. You're talking about gardening because you love gardening. All the mechanics of podcasting and all the stuff that happens behind the scenes and promotion and all that stuff mean nothing to you. You just want to talk about gardening. And when people start throwing, well, you got to do a video podcast now. You're like, I don't want to. I just want to talk about gardening. It's like, where are the podcasters who just care about podcasting, not all the other stuff? There's a. There's a secret to podcasting and why keeping your podcast a hobby is so powerful. When I talk to new podcasters, we talk about their goals, their vision for their show, if they want to go down a business path and they want this podcast to generate income or leads for their business or their coaching program, that's one conversation. I meet with podcasters who have none of that in their plans at all, ever. They don't want to make any money with their show. It's a hobby. It's just something they want to do, and they don't want to feel like they're accountable to anybody. And that's great. So when I meet with you, we're going to talk about that and say, what's your path? Are you. Are you looking to make money with your show? Are you looking to have fun and just podcast? And I say just. But it's true. You can just podcast. By keeping your podcast a hobby, you have creative freedom to do whatever you want. You're not accountable to anybody. The moment you go down the road of monetization and somebody giving you money to advertise on your show, they also have a say. When money comes to you, they have a say. They have a say on what you talk about, what you don't talk about how you do your show and how often you do your show. I know podcast networks, for example, that will give you a fine if you don't create your episode. If you go off your regular scheduled episode release, you can actually get fined for not creating a podcast. Does that sound fun? No. Right? So you have creative freedom when you're just doing your hobby, having fun with podcasting, and you're not accountable to anybody. You don't have to worry about meeting somebody's agenda because you don't report to anybody. There's less pressure, there's more joy. There's no revenue targets, there's no reporting. There's no constant comparison to the top shows. There's fewer reasons to burn out when you don't have. When you're not podcasting for a result for a person or a company in support of something, you're just doing it because you want to. And you can have really authentic connections with. With your listeners and your community through your podcast. And listeners can actually feel when you're relaxed and having fun. That's energy that draws people. It's magnetic, and it's a. It's a measurement that you can't get in your analytics is when somebody feels comfortable listening to your show because you're not under this pressure to perform. So I really want to push back on this hustle culture in podcasting in this narrative, because it doesn't serve everyone. Conferences, gurus, big shows often push the idea that real podcasters are scaling, monetizing, and building empires. That message can make hobby podcasters like you and me feel small or behind. And even when they're creating something honest and impactful, we still feel like we're not measuring up to all the big shows and what's happening in the industry. The truth is, a tiny, heartfelt show that 50 people love is not inferior to a giant show that exists mainly to feed the machine. We're not here to feed ads. We're not here to pad the pockets of ad programmers and all that stuff. We're here to create a podcast. And we're okay if we don't hit all those objectives that the big shows do. They're under a lot of stress. And look what happens when a big show doesn't meet their numbers. Everybody gets fired, the show is canceled and gone. So what's. What's the point? I want to just create the show I want to create, and I don't want to have to be accountable to anybody, and it's okay for me to do that. I'm not a second class podcaster. The key message to your listeners in all of this, it's okay for you as a podcaster to never become a business, that your show never turns into a business. It's okay. It's okay that your stats are modest, your gear is simple, and your episodes don't follow the industry best practices. That's okay. Your hobby. Podcast can be a weekly creative outlet. It can be a digital scrapbook of your life, your interests, your family. It could be a quiet corner of the Internet where the pressure, that of crushing it, like Gary Vee would say, doesn't exist because you're not doing it for that reason. I think as podcasters, we, we give too much of our attention into the big machine of podcasting. There is this big machine and it's always pushing us forward. That's why they have stuff like podcasting 2.0. I don't talk about it here often because it's quite nerdy and it's not really ready for prime time. But it's when podcasters get bored. They just get bored and they're like, well, what else can we come up with? There's a lot of great things in podcasting 2.0 that could really help the podcast industry. But again, that's for podcasters that have an agenda of making money and building communities and on and on and on and on. But for you and I, who just want a podcast because we love podcasting, we don't have to buy into all these things. We don't have to worry about this. Think about this for a second. If you are not building your podcast dynasty to turn your podcast into an income generator to make six figures a year and quit your day job, if that's not your motivation, you just want a podcast because you love podcasting. Do stats really matter? Do you, did listener count really matter? Does that all matter to you? Not really. Because you would podcast even if nobody listened. You just want to get on and tell your story. How freeing is that? When you don't have to worry about hitting some objectives, you don't have to worry about am I show better than that show. You don't have to worry about competition. You don't have to worry about listener engagements and all of that stuff. You don't have to worry about writing a blog for every episode. You don't have to be under this constant threat and demand of doing more. What I'm finding in podcasting is there's always one more thing to do. There's always one more thing that you, as a podcaster have to do. It's like you. You say, I want to start a podcast. And people are like, great, you need a video podcast. I don't want a video podcast. I just want an audio podcast. No, no, you have to do video or else. And then someone else walks in and says, well, you can't have a podcast without a blog. Every episode needs to have an app, has a spot on your website for SEO. So you have to create a blog. It's impossible that you don't do a blog. And then the next person walks in and says, you need a newsletter so you can capture all of your emails from your listeners. You can't have a podcast without a newsletter. Next person walks in and says, are you making money with your show? Like, you need to make money. Next person walks in and says, you need podcasting 2.0. You need to have all these things. You need to be live. You need to do a live podcast. And it's like a parade of people coming into your world, piling on the next next thing. And you're like, forget it. If I have to do all these things, I'm not even gonna try. I'm here telling you in this episode, you can ignore all of that, all of it, and just create the episode that you want to create as a hobby. Just because you start a hobby doesn't mean you need to make money from it. Just because you start a hobby doesn't mean you need followers. You can go start jogging. You don't. Nobody needs to pay you to go jogging. Nobody needs to run behind you and follow you while you jog. That's creepy. You don't need to build an audience. You don't need to be on social media telling us about your jogging. So if all these things are true, why is it not true in podcasting? Why is podcasting different than any other hobby? You don't need to do all the things. And when somebody tells you you have to do something, that needs to be a warning sign to you. Sure, there's good things you can do. There's things you can do to build your audience and grow your podcast and all of these things, there's a lot of great suggestions and ideas out there to help your show grow. But when you do podcasting because you love it, not because you want to grow your audience, that doesn't mean that you're not important in podcasting. I think we have a misguided approach to podcasting where we think everybody's doing what the big shows are doing. The big shows are a small percentage of the overall community of podcasting. There are more people who podcast for the love of podcasting than there are who podcast to make money or build a business or grow an audience or become somebody famous. There are more people doing what we're doing right here, you and I, than there are with the big shows. They just get more attention because they have more money. They're the ones speaking on stages at conferences, and you sit there and listen to them Talk about their 200,000 downloads in the first hour of their episode. You're like, I'm in the wrong room. If that's who podcast conferences are promoting, then I'm in the wrong space. And I think that's where we need to go and do something different. So if you want to be in a room with people who are starting out, people who are growing, people are trying. People are doing this as a hobby and people who are doing it as a business. We have our meetups. We do this twice a week. So instead of sitting in a big cold convention hall listening to some blowhard talk about their numbers and why you should be, why you're not doing enough and you should be doing more in podcasting, come to our meetup and meet some great humans who really care about you and care about your show and want to encourage you without judgment that you're on the right path. Come join our meetup. I'd love to have you there. So do you have to do all the things to be a podcaster or can you just podcast? I think you just podcast. Yeah. Fall in love with podcasting. It's what song is all about. We're starting tomorrow at the time of recording. This Tomorrow is a 24 hour endeavor that I'm doing. We're gonna do a series on your podcaster's path and it's gonna be 24 episodes. It's gonna take you from beginner to pro. And we're gonna be recording an episode every hour starting at 10am on the 13th of February tomorrow, and going all day, all night, overnight into the next day, continuing to record all the way up to 10 o' clock till 11, leading right into our meetup at 11am on Saturday the 14th, which is Valentine's Day. We're gonna do 24 episodes in a row. And it's becoming, it's going to be like a start here type collection of episodes for somebody new to how to podcast series. It's gonna have its own playlist on YouTube, group together, new artwork for the, for the episodes, all of that stuff, and I'd love for you to come check it out. So if you're available, you're going to see a lot of episodes tomorrow and the 14th in your. In your list. Listen to whatever speaks to you and look at the titles. Love for you to drop by. We're going to go live on a bunch of different platforms as well, and if we can connect over the next couple days, I would love to meet with you and chat with you. So come see what we're doing. HowToPodcast CA is my website. Love to meet you there. Take care. You're still here. Great. Okay, here's a question that came in from a podcaster I was working with on their new show. And they said, dave, you're doing a lot of episodes. This year alone, I'm doing 365 in a row, plus the 24 that are going to happen with our 24 and 24. And they said, dave, how do you. How are you doing this? Because you have a job. You have eight other podcasts. Like what. How do you. How do you stay consistent without burning out? And it's a great question. So one thing we got to be careful of is don't compare your life to somebody else's life. I have freedom in my. In my weeks, in my days that you might not have. So it's not fair to compare my process to yours. You might be working Monday to Friday, 9 to 5. I work 11pm till 7am I work nights. So during the day, my wife's at work. The house is relatively quiet, so I have the freedom of just jumping on the mic and hitting record without any distractions. That might not be you. So don't compare yourself to myself, because that's not fair. The one thing comes down to is organization, which I love. I love being organized. It comes down to prep. It comes down to your approach to podcasting and going back to my favorite line in podcasting. Do what you can with what you have, where you are. It's like the foundation of everything I'm doing with my podcasts. So when I have time to record a bunch of episodes, I record a bunch of episodes. I shut the TV off. I say no to other things that could eat my time because this is what I want to do, and I want to grow this. I want to get better at this. So if you're wrestling with your own personal distractions and things that you love to do, you might like creating, doing puzzles, which I don't. You might love music, which I do. I say no to that you might love watching 35 episodes of a TV show all at once and never leaving the couch. I used to do a bunch of that, but when I found podcasting, I walked away from that because I felt like I never accomplished anything. Sure, I was entertained, but there was no result. My life wasn't better because I binged a bunch of TV shows. That's my own personal choice. So I walked away from sitting in front of the tv, mindlessly watching or scrolling at the Internet, or being on social media giving my thumbs a workout. I'd much rather be here with you. So for me, I've said no to things. So when we talk about burnout, I think burnout happens when you try to do too much at once. But if you say no to things that eat away at your time and you don't have to wrestle with that, then you have some freedom. Now, if you're a young parent and your kids keep you up all night and you never sleep, the idea of doing a daily episode or 24 episodes in a row seems like, ridiculous. Yeah, when I was a young parent, true same I would. I was no way I could do it. But I'm in a different spot than you are. So I have freedom. So I'm using my freedom and I'm challenging myself. It's my approach. Pick the approach that works for you. And when you start feeling a little crusty because you're doing too much, then either drop something that doesn't that stays in the way of you podcast or do less podcasting or figure it out. If you're thinking that it'd be helpful to talk to somebody about your process and how to get out of this rut of burnout, you can always reach out to me. I'd love to have a virtual coffee with you anytime@howtopodcast.ca Reach out to me. It's totally free. Love to spend time with you. And if we can have a conversation that helps you even better. Thanks for sticking around and happy Valentine's Day in advance. Take care.