 Podcast was around table round 94, finding an audience. So the way I wrote this up in the description was, how do you find an audience? You've started a podcast and now you wanna find as many people as you can to listen to it or maybe you're in a rare occasion to watch it. This video is podcasting too, as we know. You'd also like to find out, oh you'd like to find the quote unquote right people, right the people to subscribe who are gonna stick around because it's content that resonates with them. It's exactly what they were looking for or didn't know they were looking for it but it fits their interest. So where do you look? Do you look at all? Like is that something you even do or do you just keep producing episodes and kinda hope they'll show up? Cause your podcast is so amazing, right? It's gonna show up and it's possible. I mean, there are ways that can happen but it happens differently for everybody. So we're gonna dive into that. Let's get to the round table. Daniel J. Lewis, co-host extraordinaire, welcome back. Thank you, I'm Daniel J. Lewis as the rumors are true from theodacitytopodcast.com. Dave Jackson, co-host, welcome back buddy. Yeah, Dave Jackson from the School of Podcasting.com. Dot com and new round tabler. Hilda, welcome to your first round table. Thank you, I'm very excited. I'm holistic Hilda and I'm from the Wise Traditions podcast. And she's got great audio. So you're way ahead of the game. Although some people say it's not important. I don't know, it's a whole debate. That's another round. I'm sure we've dove into this before, right? You guys, we've talked about, I think building an audience and how to grow like a hundred ways to grow your audience or whatever that was we did live in person a long time ago and then recreated here. But with this one, I want to start from the perspective of you did just start a podcast and you don't, well, I don't know, maybe Hilda, maybe you had a following before. Let's just actually, let's just start there. Hilda, what is your show and how long you've been podcasting? The show is called Wise Traditions and I've been podcasting for almost a year and a half. I had no following whatsoever before I got started on this really, you know, 22 Twitter followers, you know, maybe 50 on Instagram if I was lucky. But what happened was, do you want to really hear my story? Yeah, go for it. Okay, okay, I'll go for it. So what happened was I was passionate about wellness, I'm a fitness professional and I was already associated with this nutrition group and it's a long story, but I ended up in Kenya on their behalf doing some speaking and when I was in Kenya, I got on the radio and I thought, wait, hold up, if I can get on the radio in Kenya, I've got to be able to get on the radio back in the state. So when I came back, I realized, I don't need to wait for the radio, all right? I can start a podcast. So I approached them and asked them if they'd like a show and they said, sure. So that's kind of how things got started for me. Very cool. So I love that you didn't come to an audience. So you had to find your audience, right? So did you just produce the podcast, put it out there and hope people would show up or you're working with, you know, who you're working with, did they have, were they reaching out for you? Yeah, well, the thing is, it all kind of fell into place in a really good way because I knew that they already had 11,000 members in this nutrition group. It's called the Westin A Price Foundation. So I knew we'd have somebody listening, right? They already have conferences every year. They were established in the 90s. They're an ancestral health group. So I was like, okay, they've got a following. Maybe people would actually like to hear some of their stuff they want to promote instead of just reading it because they put out a quarterly journal and I already told Dave Jackson this but it was basically a Snoozeville kind of journal, like really heady, really intellectual science behind every little nutrition tidbit about why you should eat organ meats or whatever, right? And I was just like, this is really too much for me and I'm into it. So one thing led to another and so we started the show. So the advantage was they already had an audience and I knew that, but that wasn't a guarantee still that they would want to actually switch to the audio format, right? So I read some books and kind of studied up to get going cause to be honest with you, Ray, I didn't even listen to podcasts much before I launched it, you know, but I was passionate. And this is one of the things I was gonna bring up as we go along in the conversation. I feel like people already, when they start a podcast, they're already excited about something, right? They have some kind of message they wanna bring. So that is what you need to leverage to find your people. And can I start the controversy now that I was telling you I wanna bring up? It's around table, it is open. Okay, well, I actually disagree with the idea of find your audience and here's why. I feel like it can be a boorish thing to do. I remember when I was in college at the University of Maryland, this guy, he was a preacher guy, he stood on this little soapbox literally right near the big, you know, library and he would just yell out all his, you know, fire and brimstone stuff. And we really did not wanna hear it. He was looking for an audience and I don't think he found it because he was looking for an audience. And I'm also thinking about this time I went on the date with this guy and I was really excited because we're gonna go to some concert and, you know, I was like, whoa, I get to go to a free concert with this guy. I don't know him very well. And at the end of the night, I was like, that was not a free concert because I had to listen to him flapping his gums the whole way, the whole time. And he talked more than me, can you imagine? Well, anyway, I'm just segueing to tell you, like if you ever meet somebody who just wants an audience or wants to find an audience, like walk in the other direction. I don't want to just be somebody's sounding board and just listen to them. Podcasting is a two-way street. So I would say, instead of saying find your audience, you need to really look to connect with people. And I really think there is a difference. Yeah, and so, I mean, I didn't insert the word right. Well, I did in the description, the right audience, right? So the people that would enjoy your content, right? Not the radio is open and it sort of is a catch-all for whoever's out there, right, where the podcast, and this is something that I was interviewed and I think Daniel was also interviewed recently for, oh gosh, Daniel, who was it? Her name was Hayden and she interviewed us about- Backstage Magazine. Yeah, backstage. So actors kind of are people in performing arts looking to start a podcast. And this is kind of why this came to me. And it's like, well, okay, I think she was asking, what do they do? What are the first steps to getting found? You know, they start a podcast, now what? And so when I talk to people and they want to start a show, a lot of people are excited. Some people are just excited to have the conversations they're already having with their friends on the microphone and a lot of people want to just be broad or they just want to start a podcast. They don't necessarily know what it is exactly going to be about. It doesn't even, maybe some broad topic. I mean, podcast about podcasting is a broad topic but, you know, depending on who the audience might be, you might have to drill down past that. So the right audience, who can you go to? Where can you put your message out where it's going to resonate with that audience? And so I think that that's good, Dave. Well, the other thing is you have to bring value. And so the guy standing on a soapbox going, you're going to hell, brothers and gentlemen, yay! That's not really a good message to engage. That's a great one to make everybody defensive and things like that. So there might have been his target audience there but that's not depending, I don't want to turn this, but yeah, that's not a good opening statement. And I've seen that when I went to Akron U, there was a soapbox guy and he's just screaming at people. And I just thought, do you really think that's going to go like somebody walked by and go, oh, you know what? I was going to go do all sorts of debauchery but since you told me I'm going to hell, I'm just, I'm going to change my ways. It's like Facebook. When somebody puts a thing on Facebook, why was completely into this? But now that you've said that, I'm going to completely change my mind. As long as you put a colored background behind it, that makes it a whole lot more impactful. Exactly. So I think that's part of it too, is you have to bring value. But that's the step one, is as a teacher, my background's in teaching, all I ever wanted was willing students. And so, I don't know that that guy was in the right spot. Sure, he was. And he certainly maybe has a podcast where he actually found that audience that he was trying to find out there in front of everybody else. But when it comes to starting a podcast, how does the thought about trying to find people to listen to the show or hope? I mean, we find them or we hope they show up. How does getting an audience, however you're going to do that, how does that make you think about the topic or even when you're starting a podcast, how do you think about that ahead of time? Because again, if you think, I just want to talk on the microphone, my friends, we're really funny and people are going to love it and they're going to love it and they're going to find it in iTunes. I mean, these days, Apple podcast transition period here, you probably aren't going to be found. Yes, will someone find you? Sure, but isn't the idea to find as many people as possible who actually want to hear that content? People will find you if they're looking for you. And where that comes in? Don't you want people who aren't, who are interested in your topic? I want people who are going to start a podcast. They might not be looking for our show though. They might have been looking for the round table. Even if they're looking for how to podcast, they might not find the round table. Right. Well, what I'm saying is that a lot of people think it's the field of dreams formula. If I build it, he will come. They didn't say they, by the way, it's he. But they think that they just simply have to build it. And there is an aspect to if you build it, they will come with your podcast. But the thing is, what are you building? You have to build what people are actually wanting. And you see this happen with a TV show fan podcast. It is pretty easy to build an audience for a TV show fan podcast, as long as you have a good podcast and it's a popular TV show, because people are today going into podcast apps, looking for podcasts about their favorite TV shows, or people are getting into iTunes. And yes, I do mean iTunes proper. They enter the name of the TV show because they want to watch the episodes. And then they see, hey, look, there's a podcast about the TV show. I want to check that out. So they're looking for that content already. But if you have something people aren't actually looking for, you have to go look for them and you have to convince them of why they need your podcast. With the Audacity to Podcast, going to your question earlier, Ray, about it affecting the way you create content. With the Audacity to Podcast, one of the things that I think has helped it to grow is I make episodes about topics people are searching for. Some of my episodes have actually been researched or prepared based on search engine optimization research. Like I've used those tools, market samurai, long tail pro, Google AdWords, keywords, planners, stuff like that. I've used those things to find out what are people searching for related to podcasting. Here's some idea of what they want. I'll make an episode about this. And when I've done that, those episodes have performed really well passively because it's content people are already searching for. Yeah, and the question then becomes, do they stick around? Like I have a YouTube channel does very well. It's got a lot of subscribers. But I'm almost reinventing the wheel with every video. YouTube subscribers are not like podcast subscribers. I would say in general for a podcast, if you're able to get to 200, 500, 1000, whatever. And based on how you, I would say downloads per episode. If you're seeing consistently, oh the last month we're getting 500 per episode every week, you can kind of count on that per episode. When you publish a video to YouTube, it doesn't always work that way. You have to be more of a personality. You have to be someone that people want to check in on. It's just a different way. So my channel lives on search, kind of like what you're saying. And I could make videos that are more popular by checking out what people are searching for on YouTube and they'll find me. They even subscribe almost as a, I like this, not necessarily I'm planning to come back. So they found me or I found them, but they're gone. They're not probably, a lot of them are not coming back for the next thing I publish. Unlike here, we do round table. People know they're going to get a discussion specifically about being a podcast producer. They check in on that and they subscribe. And like I said, the way that works is different. So I don't know, I feel like there's also a conversation to be had beforehand when we talk about expectations. We start a podcast. What are your goals and what do you really expect? Like, are you hoping that 50,000 people are going to show up and that's just not realistic? I mean, what are the numbers? Dave, Ed Lipson, what do you guys see on average for a podcast? Most podcasters are going to be around how many downloads per episode on average? I think the, I usually just tell people, I think it's actually a little higher than this, but I know for a long time the median, meaning 50% was more and 50% was less, was around 200 and the average was around 2,000. That might be a little higher now. I'd have to go back and listen to the latest episode of the feed, but that's, it really does depend because I think a lot of people, you know, they've got the formula. I'm going to launch on this date with my three episodes. I'm going to get into new and noteworthy and I'm going to have, you know, and I'll quit my job in six months. And it's like, no. If you get into new and noteworthy, just this is a public service on it. You do not need to find your, they will find you. It's magic. So that's inside. Cause everyone who listens to this more than like three rounds knows that that's, it's not what we feel like and we know it's not true. I was so excited when my program got on you and noteworthy. I like made a little video. I was like, yes. You know, but nothing, no bump, nothing. But I want to go back to that podcaster. Wait, wait, wait, what? Nothing? You're sure this is, making sure you're not making a mistake here. New and noteworthy, right? New and noteworthy. I heard you got in. So you must be money from heaven. Did not fall. No, but I have to say the show has been successful. But I think it's because, like I said, I already knew there was an audience. And actually what I didn't say yet is that the Westin Price Foundation feeds me guests and their big name guests, at least in foodie circles, people like farmer Joel Salatin or Dr. Natasha Campbell McBride, who came up with a gaps diet and Dell Big Tree producers of movies in Hollywood. Anyway, so this really, as you know, it's a nice bump when you get your guests. But let's go back, Ray, to what you were talking about, about that initial podcaster who's like, how do I know? Me and my friends are funny. How do we know if we're going to get listeners? How do we find our audience? I would say, first off, do a test drive. Don't just wait to see at a party, if you guys are funny, but look for opportunities at comedy clubs or community gatherings to kind of test drive your material, whatever it's going to be, to see if there is broader interest between besides your mom and your girlfriend. Like you really do need to kind of get out there a little bit. Like I wasn't the director of communications. I didn't have certain chops that I have now, but I had speaking opportunities. So I took them to practice being an authority and the area of nutrition. And the other thing I was going to say about your audience, and you guys have already said it, but I'm just restating it a different way, is to pay attention. Like if that guy that I went on the date with actually cared about me and was interested in me, he would have known what my interests were and we could have had a back and forth and he would have had an audience for what he had to say, but instead he was talking at me. And so you really need to know what does your audience, what are they looking for? I'm not huge on analytics and stuff. I'm not a big numbers girl. I do manage the Instagram account for this nutrition group. So I just look at it and how many people like this last picture, you know? And so in the same way, I mean, I do look at numbers for the shows too, to get an idea, but I try to stay connected with the audience in a way that goes beyond numbers too. I look for ways to, and I know I'm already talking about an established audience, but I look for ways to really get to know them so that I can really scratch where they hitch. Yeah, there's a TV show I watch. It hasn't been on a while. It was called The Profit. And it's this guy that would go around and help small businesses. And you'd have these people that are like, you know, I've been in the fashion industry for, you know, I'm the years and my family was in it. And they were really, we're not gonna change because I know what I'm doing in the fashion industry. And he would take their stuff and get a focus group and find out that everything they make, their target audience is going, I would never wear that. So there's a lot to say about having, getting your target audience to go yay or nay on it, because you may think it's hilarious, but if you can find somebody, like you said, that's not your mom, not your girlfriend to just give it a listen and say whether or not it's any good, I think that's a great strategy. And what about, you know, that using our generic example of a group of friends who wanna start a podcast because they're funny, on top of that, they're like, we're gonna talk about movies. We're gonna talk about games and comics, right? And so, you know, how do we, is there anything to be said about thinking about who your audience is gonna be and how to focus that into your podcast? Right, if you're thinking, you know, I wanna do a show, I want it to be about these three things, or four things, or you tack on the, and whatever, right? I'm leading the witness a little bit, but I'm trying to figure out developing a topic, because I feel like when you come into it, you don't really know, you don't know what the potential audience is, you're not even quite maybe sure what the potential for podcasting is. You might think, you know, you might follow another podcast that's really big and that might be your expectation and you just wanna get started and wanna start a show, but taking that time, a little time, to think about what it is your topic is and how that relates to actually getting in front of an audience, a specific audience, hopefully. They often say, content is king. And content is certainly important, because if you don't have content, you don't have anything to share, you don't have a message. But I think equal with content is your presentation, how you share the information. So when we're talking about like, oh, we're gonna have the podcast that's about this and this and this and this and this and anything else that comes to our mind. So the content's all over the place, but the presentation could be what ties it all together. So for example, if Harrison Ford were to start a podcast and it's the Harrison Ford perspective podcast and it's Harrison Ford talking about all things. Sometimes he's talking about movies, sometimes it's about politics, sometimes it's about other stuff. If Harrison Ford is doing all of that in an entertaining, engaging way, then he could talk about literally anything and develop an audience, because the audience in that case is coming because they want to hear him. They're being entertained by him, regardless of what he's talking about, because his perspective, his presentation style is what makes it entertaining. Now that can work for anyone, it's celebrity or non-celebrity. It could be your unique take is what makes it interesting for people. They're coming both for the content and for your perspective of that content. However, having focused content, especially for us mere mortals who aren't celebrities, having focused content does make it a lot easier to grow an audience because instead of telling people, oh yeah, it's the podcast where I talk about everything, people might think, why should I listen to you? Why should I care what you think about things? Having a single focus or a very narrow focus of topics allows you to say it's a podcast about these things. Are you interested in these things? If so, then I think you'll like my podcast. Well, and I mean, why are they even gonna try? If you're not known and they're asking why am I gonna listen to you? Why are they even gonna try your podcast? Why are they gonna give you a shot? If you don't have a, if you're not there for a reason, they didn't find you because they're looking for a tip or information or entertainment about one specific thing. I mean, how are you gonna get people to even press play in the first place? A, they got to find you. And again, in Apple Podcast, there's a lot of stuff out there even in everyone's own niche these days. So how are they gonna find you and then press play and then maybe decide, oh, I do like the way Daniel Dave or Hilda says that, I'm going to actually subscribe and show up every week. It's cause you named your show Funny Farts on Fire. And people went, wait a minute, what is this about? And then they hit play. Other than that, I'm not sure how you would get somebody to do that. Well, I mean, I think you do it with, you know, I mean, one way is topic, right? I mean, we know that if you, certainly if you want to be found for a topic in Apple Podcast, you want to have an episode. It's not in the title of your show, you want to have an episode that you want to be found for, right? A keyword in there, right? So if it's how to podcast, hopefully one of the roundtables is a roundtable about how to podcast. Roundtable 34, that's not actually right. But this show here, podcast is roundtable, started it, do nothing to find an audience. Now, I already had an audience. Daniel has an audience, Dave has an audience. So we pulled together and we promote it here and there when it's appropriate. Or we say, hey, go check out round whatever. And we talked about this thing that is relevant to what I'm saying right now. So that's kind of the engine for this show. You know, if we had to go out and find, if we wanted to grow it by actually actively promoting it to people, you know, I don't even know what first step I would take outside of tweeting it or something like that. Yeah, I just, I keep thinking about, I studied to be a health coach with the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. And they said, you've got to pick a niche because, you know, if I want to health coach everybody, nobody's going to come to me because I'm just a generic health coach. But if I say, get back into your skinny jeans, you know, in 10 weeks or less, then my target audience are women who just have babies. Like it's very, very clear. And I really wouldn't recommend for anybody just to start a generic vague podcast. Like they really do need to have something very specific, some unique twist on something or they're not going to be able to grab people. It's very crowded out there. Yeah, and I think it comes back again to what do you want to accomplish? Like start a very broad, unique sitting in your room, talking with your friends about literally anything if that is your marker for success. We'll show up on the microphone. We have a conversation. We would normally have over a couple of beers on a Saturday night, except we record it and then put it out there and 10 people listen. We're so happy about that. Do it, right? And there's nothing at all wrong with that. You don't have to monetize. You don't have to have a big audience. And for the love of all things podcasting, you don't have to have a sponsor. You could do podcasting simply because it's fun. And hey, if 10 other people can laugh with you, maybe you're having a blast. And that's fine, but I mean, those people probably aren't watching this round past the first 10 minutes. For you who did start a podcast and you are interested in actually reaching as many people as possible, I would love to, you know, there's the overarching utopic goal for this show is to get every single podcaster on the round table to share their experience. Not gonna happen. It's not possible. We don't have that kind of time or reach for that matter. No one does, but it doesn't mean we don't strive to find all the podcasters we can possible. And a lot of that happens through, you know, we get new roundtablers, Hilda tells someone else she knows I was on the roundtable and now we're exposed to an entirely different group of people, you know, it's really interesting because I was on a movie review podcast, sequel cast two. And this was the first time I've been on a podcast where I was not talking about podcasting. We talked about a little bit, but we talked about a movie that we watched. And I thought, you know what? First of all, it was amazing to me in like 10 years, the first time I've been on podcasts where I felt like I was only talking about something completely different. Certainly removed from my own interest and quote unquote expertise. And I thought, this is great. Reach out beyond your own niche. Grab people, they don't have to share your conversation. I like movies. So now I'm, you know, now I got on that show and they found someone who's not a movie critic. So I thought it was kind of a good tip is to really, you know, that would be one of those thinking outside of the box, marketing moments, but yeah, reach outside even your own bubble and grab people because you could probably have a common interest that you can weave some thread between your two podcasts. Yeah, Daniel said the new fun word, which is of course, fun. You know, there are people that are just doing this for fun. I'm doing an episode Monday where I asked people, I asked my audience, I'm like, why are you podcasting if you are podcasting? And everybody said, I'm pretty sure I need to go back and double check. But I think the word fun was in every answer. It's like, I'm doing this, it's a lot of work but dog gone and it's fun. Well, those are the only people that stick around. I mean, because everyone who's not having fun stopped at episode six. So the other thing Daniel was talking about being focused, that's like my new pet peeve. And I hear so many podcasts now that are having conversations which should be had off mic on mic. And like you don't see like, hey, this week, I don't know, a Seinfeld rerun where they're going, hey, in this scene, the cue card's gonna be over there and the grip guy, nobody cares how these sausages made. So when you start off, okay, thanks. Hey, why don't we talk about that article in the New York Times you saw? Do you wanna talk about that one or this one? I'm like, that's a great conversation to have. Five minutes before you press record, I'm like, don't make me sit through that. That's my new pet peeve. I hear it a lot. A lot of what I... I think that's more acceptable when the way they do it is entertaining. Like, I don't know if this is the podcast you're thinking of, Dave, but I know the No Agenda podcast with the actual Podfather, Adam Curry and John C. Dvorak do that. And they always start out with a little bit of small talk, some little banter, some little jab at each other, something completely irrelevant to the rest of their content. Sometimes they jump right into their content, but the way they do it, and they're both very skilled, the way they do it is almost always entertaining. And that's one of the reasons I listen to the No Agenda podcast. I don't align completely with them politically. I don't listen to any other things. I don't know if anyone... Completely, yeah. Do they align with anything, really? That's the question. That's the goal of the show, I think. But I listen to be informed and entertained. And I get that from every episode. And that's why I listen to the full three hours of it, because it's all completely entertaining and informative. Those are such important principles. That's what I always try to think. You know, some of my podcast episodes could be boring. They're about GMOs or something. This feels really heavy, but I'm always aware it's gotta be entertaining and informative. I wanted to go back to something that Ray said a moment ago about thinking outside the box. I think that really helped me because I didn't just say to myself, okay, I'm a health coach. I'm gonna grab a microphone and get behind it because I have people's skills. I can do this. I approached a group that I believed in and said, you all should have a podcast and I'm happy to do it. And so we worked out an arrangement. So that was great. So I would say that's one way to think outside the box. Like, if you're like, oh my gosh, I'm an avid follower of Marvel Comics or what have you? Well, talk to them for goodness sakes. Go outside the box and be like, hey, let's have a podcast and every episode will be about your next issue of Spider-Man or whatever. I don't know. I'm not a huge comic book fan. But you'll get the idea. I just want people should step outside because there are all kinds of possibilities all around us. And I don't know. I just, every time I meet somebody in the park and they're like talking about their dog walking project, I'm like, do you have a podcast? Like I just get all excited because I see it as such a wonderful tool. And it is powerful and amazing and impactful. And I think that's why it's great that we're having this conversation because you're exactly right, Ray. People are not listening to this because they think, okay, I just want a couple of people to listen. I mean, they are having fun, but generally you want to have the biggest impact you can because people have important messages that they want to get across. And at least that was what really motivated me to get behind the mic. For sure. And I think that was a good, you got to change your paradigm. I don't remember if that was like, it was a commercial a long time ago, but it's a change of all that marketing speak. And I think I'm thinking outside the box and, but it's true. I mean, I love what you did because you found your audience by going to where they already were basically, you said, hey, you've got that audience. You don't, you're not communicating in every way possible. There's another level of communication you can be doing. I can do that for you. So it's built in. I mean, are you doing anything active to grow the show beyond producing episodes currently? Oh yeah, absolutely. I'm looking to do live shows. Like I'm going to go out to California for a wedding. So I'm doing a live show. Every opportunity I have, like this one I get on other people's shows. I'm in charge of some of their social media. So I'm ramping that up. I thought this is kind of interesting for find your audience conversation too. I thought I was just going to make the show for them done deal, you know, produce and host. And that's it only to discover that what good is it if nobody knows about it. So I'm like, oh my gosh, I got to get on this marketing train and it's been fine and it's been fun. But yeah, there are a lot of things I do, a lot of networking and connection. I just got back from a paleo conference actually. They're also ancestral health. And it was kind of fun because I got a press pass and I mentioned that because yeah, it saved me a little bit of money, but what it made me realize is, oh my gosh, I have a platform. You know, I have an opportunity to connect with speakers that I wouldn't have if I was just going to attend. So yeah, maybe Joe Blow, who's starting his podcast, you know, two weeks from now thinks, oh yeah, I'm just an avid comic book fan, you know. But that can grow into something because when you say the word podcast, you guys tell me if you've noticed this too. When I say to people on my podcaster, sometimes their eyes just light up like, oh, that's really cool, tell me about it. And opportunities present themselves that would not otherwise be there. So start small and don't get discouraged if you're out there and you're like, hey, I'm just getting going and I don't know where my audience is, go ahead and go for it. And then take the plunge and I think you will see the power that there is with podcasting. It's really gonna open opportunities for you and your audience will grow. I think you do have to stick with it. Yeah, that's the easiest way to lose your audiences to quit. I think, and I've seen people do that. I mean, just to pull up his picture, this is Alan Lee, he does the School of Banking. And remember I asked him once, I mean, well, how are your download numbers? He's like, well, I don't know. I'm like, well, how's the other thing going? And he's like, well, I don't know. And to build on your point, I said, well, what's the goal of the podcast? He goes, oh, that's easy. He goes, I get to talk to people now. All I have to say is I have a podcast I'd like to talk to you. He goes, no, come on my show. He goes, six months ago, they wouldn't have given me the time of day. Dave, I'm noticing a bit of a trend. Your show title doesn't have fire in it, but I'm hearing a lot of School of shows coming that you're birthing. It could be. I didn't, I had nothing to do with that. Sure, Dave. So just send me one of the t-shirts. I'll wear it. So yeah, I mean, like people who listen to this, they've heard it before. Gotta have fun. You gotta be passionate. You gotta start, you know, what do we have is different. We have anything else is different. And you know, that person just started a podcast. They don't have an audience. They didn't come with a big Twitter following. They're not famous. They didn't do a blog before. Obviously you want to produce a podcast and you want to keep producing episodes. We've heard it in the chat. I think Mark Fletcher, you know, consistency is key. You gotta show up. You gotta put it out there. I think that is probably the biggest thing that's gonna grow your show is actually showing up on a weekly or whatever schedule that you set. That is key. But when you find that extra time, we can notch out some extra time in that production schedule, what's next? What is something we can help the new podcaster get out there and do? I think the biggest thing to help a podcaster, especially someone who has no platform whatsoever, little side note here. I was at an event recently in Cincinnati, home of EW Scripps who owns Midroll and Stitcher. And there was an event put on about podcasting. And a guy there was there from Midroll and someone from Scripps and from Cincinnati Enquirer who put out the accused podcast, which was big time number one in iTunes in late 2016. Someone asked a question, how did you promote your podcast when you first launched it? And these people didn't say it in these exact words, but I'll paraphrase. They said, oh, that's easy. We sent it to our hundreds of thousands of email subscribers and our hundreds of thousands of newspaper subscribers. And we reached out to USA Today because we've got friends over there and it was really easy to build an audience from scratch. Right. So what about that person who has one episode? No audience, no platform whatsoever. You are, at least in internet terms, a nobody. No one knows you whatsoever. Something I would suggest you do and maybe be doing before you launch your podcast. And chances are you've been doing this already because most people don't launch a podcast without having listened to other podcasts and the fans of other podcasts. Get connected in other podcast communities, not podcasting communities, podcast communities. Become a fan of other podcasts, participate, engage with them, become known in those other communities and to those hosts. And then one of the best ways that you can help your podcast grow is when you are known by those other podcasters, ask them or say something like, hey, is there any chance I might be able to join you for an episode? Because I just launched a podcast too and it'd be fun maybe to chat or is there any chance you could throw me some love from your podcast or give me a shout out. It will help you much better if you can be on the podcast. So bring value to that other podcaster. But that puts you in front of someone else's platform, someone else's audience, so that if you are actually entertaining, knowledgeable, influential, any of those things that people want, they'll be interested in adding you to their podcast collection, not replacing their existing favorite podcast with yours, but adding yours to theirs. So get in front of those other audiences. That's not to say to only try and befriend top podcasters so that you can get in front of their audiences. See if you can build on relationships you already have with people who may have even a tiny platform. So I think how do we tackle what I was alluding to earlier? We've talked a little bit about having topics that you can be found for and search, whether it's in Apple Podcast or they are in iTunes and they're searching for a movie and they find out there's a podcast about it. And then in that case, you kind of solve the problem because if it's a podcast all about that one TV show, they're gonna stay because of that TV show. And I mentioned here with the round table, it's four people who produce podcasts. You generally would stick around from episode to episode, but if you are found for a topic, if you labeled, Hilda, I'm trying to think, if you did have an episode that talked about a specific diet as a paleo or like how to get into paleo and someone was searching for that and they found you, what do you think you can do to get those people to stick around as opposed to listen to that one episode? They got the information they wanted. They figured out how they found out how to get started in paleo, but then they moved on. I mean, what can we do to help our chances of keeping the people once we find it? So we found that audience, whether we actively did it or not, they found us, and but I think it's part of our job to see if we can, maybe you're not reeling in the right people at that point. If you are just creating, like Dan, you're saying don't just make friends with famous people because you wanna get in front of the audience. It doesn't matter if once you get in front of them, if your stuff sucks or it's not related, they're not gonna stick around, does you know good? I guess the word that keeps coming to my mind is connection. You know, it's not just a one way conversation, like I said before. So I would look for ways to, if you have, it doesn't matter how big your audience is, you know, like people say, make a Facebook group or find a way to say, hey, give me your feedback and email me and if anybody does, then pick their brain a little bit. What are future episodes you'd like to see? People love that. Our artwork for this show wise traditions is not good. I mean, this might make you go look it up and maybe you'll subscribe just because you like it. But it's this little boy, he looks like he's drowning in the water. I mean, I'm exaggerating, but everyone's like, is this a kid's show? Is this a swimming show? We don't really know. Yeah, I mean, to me it feels like, it's just like a global aid type show or something. Like it does not pull me in for the topic. I know, dude, I know. But so what are we gonna do? So it doesn't matter because our content is great. Number one, and number two, what we're gonna do is we're gonna pull our listeners and we're gonna say, help us pick this new artwork and people love to give their opinion and they feel invested that way. But I really think it can't be, like we were saying just a one-shot wonder. Like I don't use all those SEO things because yeah, that might pull them in for one show, but it's not gonna keep them. What I wanna do is stay connected with the audience. And I said I went to that paleo conference. I was looking for what is resonating with people and the ancestral health movement. So I would suggest going to where, I always think of Ariel and the Little Mermaid. I wanna be where the people are. Just go where they are. Don't just hold up in your closet recording an episode. Go to where they are, find out what they're liking and then move in that direction, especially if you're passionate about it too. Don't fake it because they'll sniff that out too. It's gotta be really, I guess I'm just into the connecting thing, but it's really gotta be genuine connection and you have to be into it. If you're not, it's not gonna fly. And yeah, it's not gonna be entertaining. It's not gonna be anything you want it to be. If it's just kind of check off this box, I said the right word in my title and I'm saying the right things, but there's no passion behind it. Yeah, and I think people, Daniel, Dave, myself, we have essentially shows about the same thing, but we've heard it, we've said it before, but they liked the way Dave says it as opposed to I said or my background is different than Daniel's and someone can relate to me or something. You know what I mean? Or they relate to Daniel. So you can have a niche that's impacted, but the host is gonna make that difference and that connection can make a real difference. Now it is hard to know who's listening, how to connect with them. Obviously you need to then put some, you have to need to reach out in your episode, right? I mean, again, finding that audience, like how do you know who's out there? So how are you doing that? You're real big on making that connection. How are you doing that? Because the podcast is you're putting it out there. You don't know who's listening unless they get in touch with you. I have to admit I am blown away by the way Dave does it. He asks interesting intriguing questions that drew me in right away and I started participating in his podcast. And so that's a great way to do it. We're kind of young. We've only been around a year and a half. I'll just tell you a bad move we made recently. Well, I don't know how bad it was, but we thought let's just make an offer. Let's say we're gonna give you three pamphlets on healthy eating and we'll say it's half off, which it is, you know, I'm not making that up. So we said a $7 for three resources. Literally every episode has thousands and thousands of listeners, you know, and we've only sold like 39 packets. So I mean, that's okay. So 39 people got something to help them get started in the wise traditions diet, but clearly I'm still trying to discern, I guess to answer your question, Ray, I'm still trying to figure out how can I meet with these people. Now this group that I'm a part of the Western Price Foundation does have a conference every year and you can bet I'm there every year and I'm looking to get to know people better, but I'm still working on it because the funny thing is since this group is very ancestral health related, a lot of people are seriously off the grid. They're not the ones, I don't think they're the ones listening to be honest with you, it's other people. So I'm still trying to figure that out. I think one of the coolest tools right now that I'm really just big on is Google Form. So you haven't played with it yet, it's free. And you can make your own super easy questionnaire and it gives you a link and if you're using something like pretty link or whatever, it's really easy, you can send it in an email and where something like SurveyMonkey or some of these other ones, you only can have like 10 questions and then you can only get a hundred replies. Well, if you can get a hundred replies, awesome. Sometimes it's hard to get a hundred, but this is like no restrictions at all. It's your typical Google thing, it's free and it's awesome, which means probably three years from now they'll kill it. But while it's around, you might as well use it. And that really is the key. I think for me, great podcasting doesn't start with what is coming out of your mouth, it's what's going in your ears. You have to start by listening to your audience and finding out what they want because I can talk all day about whatever, but if that's not what my audience is tuning in for, that's not gonna do them a whole lot of good. Exactly. You know, and that part of that thought of people who are off the grid, right? People who aren't, they're not listening to podcasts yet, but certainly they want the information. So, you know, it is, how are you reaching those people? Is adding blogs, is that one way? Are you in Facebook? You know, how are you reaching people, essentially people who aren't podcast listeners? I mean, it's hard enough to find the people who are listening to podcasts and then find them, right? And say, hey, I have a podcast you would like, but people who aren't, who don't even listen to a podcast yet, that's even tougher. I think that in-person stuff probably plays a lot into that. It does, and I'm a big fan of the word hustle because I'm just hustling my little tail off to get this word out any way I can. I think of companies that have billboards and radio ads and TV, and I just try to get on every platform possible. So to answer your question, Ray, yes, I have a blog and I feature a subject that was recently touched on on a podcast, and at the bottom, I'll put a link and say, hey, check this out. And I often say in communications with either listeners or regular people, I say, you don't even need a smartphone to listen. You can just check it out on YouTube. Like I try to make it as simple as possible because yeah, it's not easy with them. I don't know. You say you're hustling, so I'm curious, what is the marker for success in that? And for you, Ray, you're hustling to find more people, but when do you know you're being successful at, when is the hustle paying off? Well, even though I said I'm not a numbers girl, I do look at my graph on LIBSON to see how the stats are going, and every month there are more. So I know it's not the same 3,000, 5,000, 7,000 people listening, there's always more. So when I see that going up, I know it's paying off. And is there, is there a magic number? Do we, you know what I mean? This happens to people when you get money, like, oh, well, if I had a million, I'd be happy and I could live forever off it, but then you start making that kind of money and you don't stop and you get super greedy. Is there a magic, you know what I mean? As the numbers grow and we look at our graph and our stats and it keeps going up, do we just keep pulling for more and more and more? I think, I don't know, was Dave or Daniel, one of you guys talking about back in the day or a while ago about, you know, talking to the people you already have reached? Like, what's the importance of that? Well, you've got to keep, that's the hardest thing is to keep people that are tuned in. It's without repeating yourself all the time, especially with our kind of niche, it's hard not to go, well, today we're gonna do another microphone shootout, you know, because some people are gonna go, yay, and then other people are gonna go, oh, shoot me in the head. So it's hard to do that, you know, but in the end, I, that's something I've slowly just had to realize that there are people that are gonna leave that have just, for whatever reason, maybe they've got what they needed from my show and they're like, cool, and they're on to other things. And that's fine. And hopefully you left them in a way that they're out there telling people, they're like, oh, well, if you're doing this, you gotta, I use this guy, go listen to that guy's podcast. It's just tough, because we want everybody to come and want everybody to stay forever. But I think for me, I'm with, you know, as long as the number's going up, I'm happy. But I, you know, we're so early into this, you know, only 60% of people have actually listened to a podcast. So we have a whole another 40% to get on board. My thing with that, my neighbor is in his mid-60s and he was, the one day he just looked at me and goes, okay, what is a podcast? And I said, got a smartphone and he went, nope. And I went, okay. And that immediately in my head, I'm like, okay, this isn't probably going to end well. But Emily in the chat room, she actually burned a bunch of her episodes on a CD for her mom. Genius. Yeah. So sometimes you gotta give it in, you know, a format that people will use. And in that case, it becomes important for every listener. Cause I mean, man, what year is it? I mean, it feels like, you know, that may even been a marketing technique. Dave, I guarantee you gave that as a tip in 2005. Like you're on a CD and leave it in the coffee shop. But come on, we're not doing that. And the rental car was the good one. Leave it in the rental car CD. Oh my God. Complete shotgun marketing. What a one. When you did that, did you start with, hey, welcome to your nice new rental car? Like, I hope you customize it a little bit. Scared the hell out of them is what I hope you did. I'm looking at you like, what the? One of the things that I do that you can probably interpolate or extrapolate this or whatever that proper verb is for your own situation. Since I have a podcast about podcasting, that's my primary podcast where I put all of, or the majority of my energy. When I meet someone, my goal isn't to get them to listen to the audacity to podcast. If they're not interested in podcasting, that is hosting their own podcast. But if they don't already listen to podcasts, or if I ask them, what podcast do you listen to? And they start listing off the public radio podcasts. My goal then is get them listening to an independent podcast. This is for a psychological reason here. When someone listens to these highly produced radio shows, probably nowhere in their mind are thinking, hey, I could do this. But if they listen to a podcast where it's a guy or a girl or a couple of people talking, normal conversations, but engaging, informative, entertaining, no fancy production. They just, they sound good. They're talking well and it's interesting content. That's much more relatable. Like even for me, my story of thinking about starting a podcast was I was listening to this week in tech many years ago. And I realized, hey, these guys are connecting through Skype. They have microphones, they edit the audio, they publish to a website. I know exactly how to do all of this kind of stuff. I know how to do a podcast. I can figure out the RSS thing. So my goal when meeting someone, then is get them connected to a podcast that's more relatable for them. And at some point then, if I meet them again in the future, they might say, hey, I found a podcast about such and such. And then I might be able to plant a seed and you can see maybe potential ties here to Christian evangelism, but I can plant a seed to say, oh, that's really cool. Did you know you could have your own podcast like that? If you're ever interested in starting your own podcast, you should listen to my podcast. So it becomes more relevant the next time I meet them. Now, the other way I can use people who may never listen to my podcast to help grow my podcast is the networking aspect, to say, hey, if you know anyone who's thought of starting a podcast or is trying to market their whatever and a podcast might fit for them, would you tell them about me? And I've gotten a lot of referrals that way because not because the person who referred me has any interest in starting a podcast, but because they knew someone else who did and they knew me and they wanted to connect us. My sister-in-law wouldn't, again, many, many moons ago. When I used to build websites in front page, that tells you how long ago this was, my sister-in-law was a teacher and I gave her a bunch of business cards because she was always running into people that just needed a real basic website mate. And she's like, oh, my brother-in-law can help you with that. And so I would say make sure your family knows that you have a podcast so they can direct people. And yeah, exactly, if we went back, if my neighbor had said, I do have a smartphone, my goal is not to get him to listen to my show because I doubt he wants to start a podcast. I usually ask, what's your hobby? And if he said, oh, I love NASCAR, I would have typed here, pull up the app, NASCAR search, there's a podcast, listen. Because if I can get that person listening, even though it's not a win for me, it's a win because I just helped him find podcasts and he's gonna think, wow, that guy's really cool. But that will then get that going, hey, if you guys ever listen to a podcast, I just started listening to this one and that's how we get more, that's really what we need. We need more people listening to all podcasts. That's kind of the head exploding moment for people that many people don't realize there is stuff out there they want. They just don't know they want it yet or they don't think to search for it. So like the sports or a TV show, when I talk to people, even people who are familiar with podcasts, one of the common questions I'll ask is what's your favorite TV show? And they usually have a favorite TV show. And so either I'll tell them, or at this point it's pretty safe to, I mean, either I will show them or at this point it's pretty safe to tell them, there are probably a dozen podcasts about that where they theorize, maybe they interview some of the cast members, maybe they dig into some of the behind the scenes stuff. Would that interest you? And usually the response is, well, yeah, that sounds cool. I had no idea anything like that existed out there. See, that's the thing. People don't go to Apple podcasts or your podcast app thinking, huh, I wonder if by any chance, is there anything like a podcast about this TV show? Unless they know there are podcasts about TV shows. You have to open their eyes to the world out there. Jay Scott in the chat actually says, is there truly a divide between MPR slash WNYC podcast and the Indie podcast? And I will say Daniel, one of the things what you're saying there, that's Dave Weiner's whole premise was that he wanted to show, and Dave, if you've ever listened to anything, it's terrible. Like usually the audio is bad, it gets cut off, like literally it just never comes back. It's bad, I've had to fight really hard to listen to some of his stuff just to get it. But his point in the beginning was, look, if I can do this, if I can put my message out there, so can you. And it wasn't MPR and it wasn't something that people tuned into and said, they just didn't connect with thinking I could do that because Dave wanted to give that sort of freedom of voice and that platform saying anyone can do it. But, and I do agree with Mark who is saying it's a fine line between well-produced and homegrown sounding. And it's funny because just today I was thinking, you'll hear people who say, ah, don't spend too much money on a mic or don't worry about it, don't think about it. And I think it's the difference between, you can go that route and you can start a podcast with anything. I can do, my fan is blaring on my laptop right here. I can talk into them in built-in mic and I can start a podcast. But I feel like at some point when you do find someone to play, it's a difference between sounding like a webinar that someone just sort of like, that the person who has like five hours a week and their 40-hour job to just make it happen produced and a show, something that I actually want to tune in every week in here. So there's a fine line there. But yeah, there's, I like the idea of getting in front of people and showing them that anyone can do this. And then I think if, well, they should come over to the round table and figure out how to do it just a little bit better. But yeah, I think there definitely is, there's a divide and it's a, we live in sort of a bubble where this argument happens constantly. The divide begins public against indie, but there's difference. I was laughing because I was talking to this person and we're having the, you know, show me your smartphone discussion. And she goes, oh no, I love podcasts. I listen to NPR all the time. And her opinion NPR equal, that was it. That's like, they were the only people that make podcasts. And I was like, and that's when I was like, hold tight, time out. They do make really great podcasts, but what's your hobby? And it's, there's nothing more fun than like peeling back the curtain. And all of a sudden they go, whoa, I didn't know this was here. It's like, you know, it's like going from black and white to color in the Wizard of Oz. All of a sudden you're like, look, this is, it's all available to you. And I'm so excited about it. You guys like, I am a health coach. I've got my Wives Traditions podcast, but I've helped my holistic hairdressers start a podcast. I've helped my holistic dentist start a podcast. And so now I've actually set up the holistic Hilda website because I want to help holistic care practitioners, people in this whole wellness field start podcasts because it is so easy and it is so wonderful. And it's just, it's really exciting. It's kind of fun that I'm just as passionate as you all are, but I'm, I see this wild, wonderful world and the power that comes with it. So I'm all about people starting their shows and excited that we're having this conversation just to maybe help people who haven't even started yet to launch one, their first one. Yeah. And I mean, it all goes the same. I mean, if you're listening to NPR and you are continually tuning in, you found content you like and it's available on your phone. So it's super easy for you to get and you can listen anytime you want. And that's the key is not like hopping to my car and hope that the, you know, all I only drive to the store at 10 a.m. because all things considered is on no, you get that on your podcast, but then being able to go a step beyond that and open up the sort of Pandora's box. Oh, wait, Pandora, that's a bad reference since they suck at podcasts, but you know, and saying, look, whatever you are picking out of this show that you enjoy, you like the way it's presented, awesome. And once in a while they hit a topic. All the topics are interesting because they do them well. But if you have a very specific interest, you can go over here and drill down into it. But of course, you know, like we said, there's probably, Daniel, you're saying there's a dozen of shows for that sport that you like, but you know, we also have the danger of introducing people to someone that's garbage. And they're like, yeah, this is why I don't listen to podcasts. So why listen to NPR? I mean, what the hell did you just put me in front? That was terrible. I was like the worst thing I ever heard. First podcast I ever heard was horrible. I only stuck around because I was like, it was 2005. And I was like, what's going on right now? How are these really bad people reaching me? And I have to be honest with you guys, I don't listen to that many indie podcasts. Now I feel kind of guilty like I should be. But I learned. International Podcast Day. I just, I love the professional ones because I learned so much about the crafting of the arc of the story and how they keep me engaged to keep listening even at the very end, you know, those Easter eggs, Dave, you've talked about, you know, so I just love it so much. And I don't know, I'm being challenged right now myself to listen to more indie because it is out there. And why don't I support it more? I don't know, it's a good question. I guess I'm afraid of the crap I'm gonna come across. What's amazing about podcasting is, well, first of all, never before in history has there been an opportunity for people to communicate, the average person to communicate so authentically with the global audience, literally from their basements or from their closets because podcasting even predates YouTube and that kind of video platform. But the other amazing thing about podcasting is that the quality level is so much easier to reach a good quality than movies, like indie movies. I cannot stand watching an indie movie made by amateurs, you know, filmed on amateur equipment, recorded in their closets and their houses, that kind of thing. It's horrible to me because there's so much that could be done better in production and so many moving pieces to making a quality movie production. But in audio, it's basically audio quality, content quality, presentation or communication quality, those three things really easy to reach with those three things. And you can have an indie podcaster who the value and entertainment of their content can exceed that of the NPRs and such. And like, here's an example, Hardcore History, Dan Carlin. You know, we talk about him all the time. I finally listened to one of his episodes, his most recent episode, which I think was six hours long. I listened to the entire thing. Seriously? Yeah, and I didn't unsubscribe from any of my other podcasts. Now, I loved it. I absolutely loved it. Maybe it's the military brat in me that particularly liked that this was an episode about nuclear stuff. That was really cool to me. But so I was totally wrapped up in that. I've tried some of those public radio podcasts and while I certainly respect their ability to tell a story, their production quality and all of that kind of stuff, I totally respect that and think that's really cool. They do a great job. I don't connect with it in the same way. I would much rather listen, and I even told her this at one time, I'd much rather listen to Emily Prokop's podcast, The Story Behind, Joe, than Serial. I could not stand Serial. I did not make it through the first season, but I faithfully subscribe to these other podcasts by indie producers because their content is good, their presentation is good, and their quality is good enough too. That's what we have with podcasting. I think with indie stuff where, especially if you read, there's a book called Out on the Wire from a woman who spent a year with This American Life and she kind of peels back the curtain on what they go through. It's amazing, like they, I mean, that's why they have 20 people working on an episode for three years. And it's one of those things where that is actually more of almost a performance where I think sometimes indie podcasters, it's more of a conversation. It's somebody just talking to the other person on the other side of the table, as opposed to, well, if we do this here and we'll bring in the mood music and then the transition, which is all part of the, it's meant to impact, but I think with indie folks sometimes you, it's just a little more of a, that's why I loved it. When I first found podcasting and people weren't talking like this, man, hey, coming up next, traffic and weather on the 10s. It was just somebody talking to me. That's when I was like, ooh, I like this. So that's me. I think we've, I think we managed to fall down our own rattle about what we like and what we subscribe to. But there's probably some takeaways in there about how we're finding stuff or what we enjoy about a podcast to help you produce your own show to reach people like you or people who are interested in your topic. Funny thing about podcasting is at work, we have a show that does 10,000 listeners per and it's about an extremely specific topic. It's about viruses. And the emails we get, people are their police officers in Australia, they're mail carriers in Portugal. I mean, it's just, you can't predict who the audience is gonna be. I mean, you would think, oh, we're going into this is only gonna be lab technicians and professors and bench scientists, but it's not. People have hobbies that you would never, ever imagine. So on some level, you need to put it out there. And I keep thinking that maybe the best advice in the new podcaster, because I think the key is actually sticking around past that six, seven episodes, is like take that first year and just rank out really good content. And then maybe see who shows up. And then, and during that entire time, try to have that conversation with them. Don't be discouraged when people don't email you or tweet you when you ask them. But six months down the road, you probably will have had some interaction. And then distill from that and then figure out who's listening, how you can improve it for that person. And then go ahead and maybe tweak your podcast or just keep doing the same. But you probably need to spend a lot more time, especially in the beginning, as that person who is unknown. I'm starting from literally starting from scratch. I don't have any contact with the online world outside of Twitter friends or something. But I have a podcast and you gotta crank out those episodes. And don't, you're not thinking like, you're gonna watch your stats. What's gonna happen? And you're gonna, but the thing is you are so excited when it goes from five to six lessons to eight lessons to 15 lessons. But you know, sure, go ahead and look and have fun with that. But I would say don't aim, you're not aiming for any number. You're aiming to produce something really well and keep doing that. I don't think audience for me is probably not a marker to look for in the beginning at all. I agree with you consistency. Keep your head down, bring the best you can to the audience and yeah, just go for it. The audience before they even exist. Yeah, that's true. The audience you hope is there. The first episodes I did, oh my gosh, my sound, not even the first ones. I'm embarrassed to say how far along it went that the sound was just not that good. I did the best I could, but I didn't have the sound absorption film, what have you, but the content was good and I was committed. I wasn't gonna let anything stop me. People would say, oh, Hilda, can you do something about that? I was like, I'm working on it, you know? So just, yeah, keep plugging away, keep doing it. You know what you're passionate about. It didn't stop you and that's the key is, I talk about good audio versus bad. Don't let it stop you. Don't let it get in the way. Again, I just said for a person who doesn't have a platform, doesn't have, Dave will tell you, no one's listening in the beginning. Like it's a good chance to make those mistakes and you can always rehab that. You can go back and switch if you have to but I would say don't worry about it. People who were there in the beginning are going to enjoy seeing you grow if you're working on it. Hey, Ray, you just reminded me of something though. Before I launched, like I went to the conference of this nutrition group and so I found a way to build some pre-buzz. So that's something to think about too. We haven't mentioned it, but like find a way to find a potential audience and say, hey, you know, have a giveaway at a community fair, whatever you need to do to find a potential audience and say, hey, I'm interviewing people at this booth, you know, pay $25 to table at a community booth that you know will attract potential listeners and then do what you need to do to start an email list or whatever. Like, yeah, it's going to start small, but I did have a little pre-buzz that I had thought about ahead of time to get people interested. Yeah, and I think, you know, you'll hear that from gurus and stuff. If your launch is so important to you that you need X amount of people to listen or, you know, people are focused on I have to be featured. I got to get in that feature, you know, and doing some pre-stuff. But, you know, I think for the most part, you know, if that is your goal, if your goal is to have 100 listens for your first episode, then fantastic, right? You can go out and do that pre-work. But otherwise, probably focus on that podcast and just get it published. Yeah. And don't care about, don't care about if you got five or 500 downloads for that first one. You can't improve what you don't start. Yeah. Yeah. That's the biggest barrier I see, you know? I mean, we're talking here about finding an audience and hopefully we can help people do something different to get out there and grow their show a little bit, but you definitely don't want it to be a barrier to preventing you from actually creating the content in the first place. Well, the other thing we should probably mention just for the complete, it seems rather obvious, but we haven't mentioned it yet. If you have absolutely zero audience and you live in the middle of nowhere, Idaho, there is this tool called Google that might be able to help you find a Facebook group, a meetup group, something, you know? And I'm amazed sometimes how many people are stymied by things and you just go, well, have you checked Google yet? And they're just because it's not right in front of them. It's like, for me, I know I always get made up fun of when somebody will go, I'll go in the fridge and I'll be like, you know, have you seen such and so I can't find the mustard. And if it's not like right in front of me, forget about it, I'm lost. It's, you know, if it's behind the pickles, forget about it. And I think sometimes podcasters might have that same thing where, you know, if your group you're looking for is not right in front of you, well, there's this thing called Google, you can probably find out where your potential audience is and go there and hand them a business card. Good point. Yeah, all right, well, so as we head out, you know, some of the same things and maybe that's just because that's the way to do it. Like, I know I think there's this, I don't know. I mean, I guess I feel like anyone listening this deep has a podcast and they've heard all this and they're good, like they get it. But, you know, if you're new and you're starting, then hopefully the encouragement and that expectation that I sort of alluded to is, you know, careful with your expectations. Again, I think people start a podcast and they think it's going to be big and you should plan for it to be big, but don't freak out when it's 50 people. You know, it's gonna be hard in the beginning. Here's the thing, is it harder to, you know, as you get bigger, bigger, I mean, there's a ceiling for all of this. This show has like a, we get like maybe, I don't even know what the numbers are, but not more than a few thousand people are gonna listen. You know, that is the current ceiling or whatever. That's what this show fits into. So, you know, don't get discouraged and realize that what those numbers really are. You know, that one person at a time with Emily putting on a CD, you know, you just got a new subscriber. Someone's gonna check in every week. So, words of encouragement as well, but expectations are like a big deal. And I think when you're starting a podcast and you don't have a platform, you think, this is it. This is, I'm gonna bust out and now everyone's gonna know me on the internet. I'm not sure that that's the way to approach it. Yeah, I think I had big dreams at first and was a little disappointed when it took some time to catch some fire. So, back then I lowered the bar in my mind to, okay, I thought I'd have, let's say 1,000 per episode and it's just, you know, 500 or whatever, which might not sound low to some people, but whatever. But now you asked what next, what are you shooting for? Well, I raised the bar because I wanna keep going, you know, as far as I can. So now I think, okay, I have, let's say, you know, 12,000, 15,000 per episode. Well, now I wanna get 50,000, you know. It's just a fun little game because I'm a competitive and kind of an ambitious person. But so if it's small, yeah, don't get discouraged, lower that bar and then later raise it and adjust your expectations. Just, and have fun on the journey because it's a blast. Dave, you're rich, right? Podcasting's made you rich. Rolling in the dough, as we speak. What do you, how many years you got in on this? 12. 12 years, massive audience, rolling in money. I get paid in friends and, you know, in friends. Yes, can you guys hear that? I can hear it. That is my cat on the other side of the door. Bernie's your friend too. He is my friend. He's trying to remind you, you're not alone. Yeah, so, and Daniel's rolling in the dough. He's got his mansion and his, everything else. If by dough, you mean bread dough. Right. Then still no, because I'm trying to do low carb. I don't need a visual Daniel rolling in bread dough. Or a visual of me rolling in anything. It's, all right. Well, as we head out, I mean, if you have anything else to add to finding an audience, and I don't know where I, I don't know where I came down on this side. It's, it's mostly, it had me thinking about, and Hilda, how I found you, I believe you, you must have said something about building an audience and when you signed up. So that's the key. I didn't even put that in the beginning. So if you are still listening, you are the type of person that would go to podcastersroundtable.com slash guest, sign up and submit the topics you want to talk about. That's how I find people to bring on to the show. And you must have said something about building an audience. But I also then had that interview and I was thinking, when I'm giving out this advice of the one who's starting a podcast, and these are people who don't, you know, these are coming from outside of podcast. They don't have, they don't have a bunch of people to bring to the show. They don't have an audience. They need to find an audience for that topic. Or in this case, it might not be a topic. It might be broad enough to just, it's just a podcast and we just talk. So, you know, and that's kind of a challenge. What do you, what do you say to that? And, you know, even in the, in the process of this round, I think I would be less apt to tell people, I would, I might say, don't worry about it. Like you, you need to, you need to build, you need to build something that actually would resonate with an audience before you worry about going out and find them. And who are you even looking for? I mean, do you really know what your show is going to be before you started? The School of Podcasting probably started as one thing and it's probably not the same as it started out. It's, it's gone through many, at one point it had everything. It was just this giant mess of tools and tutorials and people would walk in and just go, and you probably have a very specific type of person who listens to School of Podcasting, right? I mean, like everyone's got their audience. I think, you know, Cliff will attract a certain type of person who wants to start a podcast. Dave, your show may attract a certain kind of person. You know, so you think going into it, probably in School of, I want to help everybody want to start a podcast. And that seems, that seems pretty niche. Like I want to help people start a podcast who want to, but even then you might have to think who, who is, who is the audience? Who has found me and who, who are they? You know, maybe they are more like you. That's what you find out. You know, for me, I just, I like to mess around with new gear, try new things. I think people who are interested in quality would actually lean towards my podcast. That might be what they're looking to my show for, whereas I'm not going to teach you how to get rich in your podcast. Yeah, I'm glad that wasn't today's topic, get rich in your podcast. It's not happening for me either, but you know, the, the mission of this nutrition group is education. So I'm like, hey, we're fulfilling that. I'm helping people as well. And it really, it is, it does grow your friends circles and all that. And it's just amazing. I just love it so much. So I'm really glad that I've been in this conversation with you guys. I'm not trying to fangirl too much, but I just think you're awesome. And I have been listening to you and it's really groups like you all, your shows have helped me improve. Every now and then there's a little light bulb that goes on and is like, oh yeah, I should do this or that. You know, it's from something I've learned and it's, it's been invaluable. And I mean, there's a good example, right? I mean, like I couldn't have gone out and actively kind of looked for Hilda. Like she, she found the show and she related to us on some level and she wanted to learn how to help her podcast grow, whether it's a different microphone, whether I see acoustic panels there. I mean, who knows what it is, right? Or whether it's presentation style, you know, you found us. And I couldn't have guessed like, I couldn't have guessed where people are gonna come from. That's the beauty of this show is people come from all niches to listen to this show. So yeah, I just think in the beginning, you know, and I'm starting this round I'm thinking, how do I find audience? And maybe that's for the podcaster who's listening to this, maybe who's two years into their podcast. You know, I don't know. Daniel, are you, how much are you gonna focus on? Again, you kind of brought up the, you have no audience. You have no background, no, you're not bringing anyone to the table. How much are you focusing on finding an audience when you're that person? I think a lot because you want an audience but also starting out, your biggest focus really, I think needs to be making a big splash, not in the sense of a new and noteworthy. You make a big splash by throwing something big in, big and heavy into the water. So focus on making a great podcast when you start out so that you have something worth people tuning into. Cause the worst thing that can happen and this is kind of what happens often when people upload fake videos to YouTube. The worst thing that can happen with podcasting is you get thousands of people coming to your podcast and turning away and never coming back because something about your podcast, turn them away. The quality, production or content or presentation or something else, turn them away, they will never be back. That's the worst thing you can have. Yeah, and that's the key. I mean, we're talking about finding audience which can be difficult to do. It can be difficult to be found, have someone press play and actually listen to the first three minutes. And if they're never coming back, if it sucks. So, you know, I feel like I'm working this out in real time. So, you know, if it's like, look, and it is, it's a, man, I hate, I just don't wanna be like, make great content. Like that's the magic panacea for finding good audience and not giving me tricks, but it's important. Yeah, you wanna be specific. I understand that as the power of this particular episode but it's also the power of good content. When you said, Daniel, make a big splash, you know, it made me think about swimming and just imagine someone who's gonna, you know, swim the 400 meter freestyle. What if they were doing like freestyle and then they switched to breaststroke and then they switched to, oh, actually that is a relay. But just hang with me for a second. Like, they're not switching their style in the middle of one of the legs, you know what I mean? Like, so that's the problem with content that's too broad if you're just like, oh, and we're gonna talk about movies and comics and, you know, games. Well, that's too broad. Like it really, I don't think it can be as effective and it's not gonna have people stick around because people might be interested in one of those. I don't know, I don't know. I just, I'm really a fan of really honing in a little bit more because you can't hang on to people. And if this show is about building your audience, like you really want to find something that is gonna resonate with people and that resonates with you and that you're passionate about and then run with it. And if that sounds right, you know, I'm sorry, but it's really gonna have the most impact. You can't just write a health book, you know, for my health folks, you can't just be like, get healthy today. Well, nobody's gonna pick up that book. I mean, everyone wants to get healthy, but it's too general. So you really have to hone down and figure out what your niche is gonna be and then run with it. And I think that relates to Dave. I think you had the example and I brought up more than once of the lady who like had a quilting show, but then she also then like halfway through would read a, like review a book or something. And her audience was like, yeah, I'm not so much into that quilting stuff, but that book, when you go through like your mystery books, that part's amazing. And that's it. Like she was reaching two different audiences and half of them didn't want to stick around, but then, so she really found her audience, the feedback that she got. And I think she eventually, I may have dreamt this, by the way, it may not be from your show, but I'm pretty sure it was. And she modified it to be like, well, gosh, this is actually why people are showing up and what they're sticking around for, what they enjoy. So finding an audience may come down to, again, having enough stuff out there to find out what people are enjoying and then sort of evolving from there. But all right, we could beat this dead horse a lot. But I think we've done that. We will get on out of here. So let me know where we can find your podcast Hilda. And thank you so much for joining us for your first round table. It's been so much fun. I've loved it. The podcast is called Wise Traditions and you can find it on Apple Podcasts, tune in, Stitcher, anywhere you get your podcast. And people can find me at HolisticHilda.com. I'm Holistic Hilda on Twitter and Holistic Underscore Hilda on Instagram. If you're watching the video version, I'm doing this purely for SP in the chat. So SP, name the mystery item in the background. You should go to youtube.com slash podcast or round table and subscribe to us over there because, A, hit the notifications. You'll know when we're live. So if you happen to be around, you can participate in the chat like SP and Jay and Mark. Everyone's so many awesome. The chat's been going the whole time. Emily just popped up there. So, but you can also play the, I still have it, the what's in the background, what's in Ray's background, even though today you're seeing just a blank color. But anyways, that's what that inside joke was for. Cause if you're listening this deep, you get it. Dave, thanks for joining us once again. Yeah, Dave Jackson from the school of podcasting.com. And I would just wrap up by saying, if you're going to build an audience around your podcast, you can't have your audience go to your podcast if you don't have a podcast. So start your podcast and then you'll have something for them to go rally around. Get started. Want an audience? You gotta start. I like it. Daniel J. Lewis, thank you very much once again. Thank you. I'm from theodacitytopodcast.com. My latest couple of episodes might be interesting to you. I'm talking about moving your podcast, as well as an episode all about loudness, normalization and how you can achieve that. That and more at theodacitytopodcast.com. Awesome. All right. Well, if you want to be a future guest, podcastregroundtable.com slash guest, we'll see you for 95. Again, making that creep towards 100 in our podcast diploma. I don't know why I'm trying to turn that into a thing. It's not a thing. I'm just having fun. Looking forward to it. I'm a senior who's sick of the classes and I just want to graduate. That does not mean the show is ending. That just means it's just starting. All right, you guys. Wave goodbye. We are finally out of here. Bye, guys. See ya.