Speaker 1: Okay. So, you started your podcast, and nothing's working for you. It's really frustrating, right? You've spent all this time on it. You did the launch. Nobody cares about it. Nobody's listening to it. You spent all the time, and you've put all the effort into it.
So, let me give you a story, really quick. When I started my first podcast, Growth Everywhere, I was still trying to save this company that I took over, Single Grain. What happened was, I was spending six hours a week. I was interviewing people. I was writing the show notes. I was uploading everything. I was making sure the format looked good. I made sure I scheduled it to social media. This is when podcasting wasn't that big yet. It was still, kind of, on the uptick. This was before Tim Ferriss, even started his podcast.
After the first year, I was only getting nine downloads a day. At that point, it's like, "Man. Should I just throw in the towel and give up on this thing and then just focus on continuing to grow the business? " I didn't give up. I kept going. Same thing, year two. After the second year, my god. Things were a lot better, right? Thirty downloads a day. Nothing burger.
So, you got to be patient with this stuff. You got to be consistent. That's the first thing. Like, what I'll do here, when things aren't going well, I like to triage. I like to make a checklist. The very first thing you have to ask yourself is, are you being consistent with it? And, are you being consistent long enough? It's not just, you do it for six months, and you're done. Right? Content marketing, in general, is a twelve to eighteen month journey. I talk about it all the time. So, are you consistent? That's the first thing.
Second thing is, are you promoting it? Are you blasting it to your email list? Are you blasting it to social channels? Are you promoting it in Facebook groups? Are you telling your friends and family about it? Be honest with yourself. Are you really doing the best of your ability right now? If you can't do promotion, organically, which you should, how are you doing it through paid promotion, as well?
The other thing I'll ask you, as well. This is something I struggled with in the beginning. How is your audio quality? For Marketing School, our audio quality was bad for the first year, because Neil and I would just be recording it ... He'd be recording it, and it'd sound like he's recording from a bathroom, for example. Your audio quality has to be good, because that's the thing that they listen to. Right? Just like when you watch a video, for example, it's better for you to watch a video that looks good, and you have good audio quality. Like, right now, we invested in ... We have microphones, because we know it's a better experience for you.
Then the other thing that you have to think about is, is your content, genuinely, good? So, yes. You tell your mom about it, "Oh, sweetie. I like it. I love it." Right? But look at my sweetie look, right now. Do I really feel good about it? What you're really looking for when you ask people for feedback, especially, if you're getting it in person, or over the phone, how excited are they about it?
This is what I like doing when I do reference checks on people. Usually the first three reference checks, they're supposed to be really excited about the person. If they're not, that's a red flag. If people that you're asking, that really care about you, are giving you, kind of, lukewarm feedback, even people that listen to your other content, or they follow you on other stuff, if they're, kind of, lukewarm about it, ask yourself, is your content genuinely that good? Is there a reason people should listen to you over a podcast like, the Tim Ferriss podcast or How I Built This, for example? Is there a reason for them to listen to your stuff, over Netflix, over the other podcasts out there?
So, these are just a couple things for you to think about. These are checklists. I say, you organize it. Then really ask yourself and be honest. Be harsh with yourself about how you're doing. Then you're going to be able to improve. Then just stick with it longer. I mean, the story I gave you, that's a good example. Right?
So, if you like videos like this, you want to grow your podcast, you want to grow your business, you want to grow yourself, just hit subscribe, and we'll see you in the next video.