Does A Friend Need to Hear This?

Jason: (00:03)
Broadcasting from a small mountain town high in the Colorado Rockies. My name is Jason Owens, and this is the renewable confidence podcast, the show that helps you renew your confidence in yourself and in your business every day. Now, if you do some kind of marketing activity for 30 straight days, you’re going to expect to get some results from it. Right? Well, in this episode I’m going to share the unexpected results and what I’m going to do next you see today is the 30th straight day of releasing a podcast. Now notice I said releasing the podcast. I did not say recording one. Okay, so I’m going to break down my five biggest lessons that I’ve learned and a couple. I’m going to share a couple of kind of surprising things that that really took me back when I first was able to figure them out. So yeah, a lot of good lessons happen out of this and I’ll tell you what, this is going to be a great episode.

Jason: (00:57)

1) Block Scheduling

So here we go. All right. So number one, what is the big thing that has, that has probably been probably the biggest aha for me and that is the value of something called block scheduling. Okay. So this time management technique that I have, it allows me to just block out large amounts of time on my calendar and it allows me to accomplish a ton of work in a very short period of time. So what I do not do is I do not try to record one episode a day and release one episode a day. Okay. So to no surprise, what I ended up doing is I’m going to find some time on my calendar. I’m, I’m going to carve out several hour block where I do not take any appointments. I do not take any phone calls. I do not even read my email. Okay. What I will do is just simply sit down and start working on these episodes.

Jason: (01:46)
And that’s been really, really good. Uh, probably the biggest aha moment here for me has been the power of block scheduling. Because what I, well, when I first set this goal, I thought there was absolutely no way that I’m going to be able to do this, or if so it’s gonna take just a phenomenal amount of time. Well, it does take some time, but what I realized is that by using block scheduling, I can sit down and record and set up the release of four to five episodes at a time. Now, my aspiration here, if I had a team who was working with me, somebody who was a production manager type a, what I would end up doing is I would do nothing but record the episodes. You see right now the workflow includes not only recording the episodes but also creating the blog post, which includes getting the show transcribed and it also includes the entire social media campaign to promote the podcast.

Jason: (02:43)
Right? So, and I have to be very honest, recording the episode that’s, that doesn’t really take a whole lot of time. Right? Usually I sit down, I usually I do these things in one take and we’re looking at five to 10 minutes an episode, right? So I don’t do the gargantuan long, huge half hour or shows like this American life, right? So, um, the production of these actually goes quite quickly. The post-production, right? So that’s the setting up of the blog post, which then creates it into a true podcast episode, which then puts that out on something called a a podcast feed. And once it’s on the podcast feed, then it goes to iTunes and Google play audio and Stitcher.FM and blah, blah, blah. You know, it goes all out for syndication. So that post-production is actually where the majority of the work comes in.

Jason: (03:29)
But still through block scheduling, I find that I can sit down and do four or five of these at a time and really set myself up for almost for a week. And I can do that in less than a half day. Now there are some people who will set up an entire day and they will record their podcast episodes for the entire month. Right now that would be awesome to be able to do. Right, but uh, Hey, I’m really happy with where I am and really happy with the quality of what I’m doing. Okay.

2) Podcast Episode Template

Number two. Second biggest lesson is I ended up saying that I wanted to raise my game on the episode template itself. Now what I mean by this is a, if you are listening to this episode and you just found it out on iTunes or founded out on a, wherever you find your podcasts, each of these shows will have a corresponding show notes page back over on my blog.

Jason: (04:24)
Yeah, there’s a whole bunch of schools of thought as to whether or not it’s even worth the time to do a show notes page. What I’ve found, because I don’t have a lot of these, is that it’s given me a really good way to stay consistent on publishing and releasing items out there to the internet. And for whatever reason, Google likes regular release days and it likes you to have a fair amount of stuff on a page whenever you release it. And I found a way to be able to do that, right? Uh, and a lot of that really just goes through doing a podcast transcription. Okay? So if you go to one of my more recent, so past 30 days, if you go to one of my more recent shows and you look down towards the bottom, you’re going to see a little, uh, expand expander box where if you want to look at the transcription, just click the expander box.

Jason: (05:07)
Well, Google doesn’t need to click that transcription. Google sees the transcription without needing to click on it. And what’s cool is that I’m, I’m getting a little bit of a boost of organic traffic. Okay? So if you go back to the ye olden days of blogging, it was, Hey, wow, you got to publish some huge thing and you’ve got to publish every day. And you know, just this almost unattainable a workload for one person. Uh, I find that crazy enough that through transcribing my podcast, I’m actually able to do a pretty decent amount of quote unquote publishing each day. Now, I’m not a huge fan of small businesses trying to make a huge living on just organic traffic these days. So please don’t, don’t hear that as the episode. But anyway, what I ended up doing is all my early, I mean, very, very early podcast episodes. It was literally just a little teeny player on the screen.

Jason: (05:57)
So you go into the screen, click the player, and it’ll start playing the audio. And I think I would even, there are some times I didn’t even put up a featured image an image, right. A featured image to go with that post. Uh, so really my, my early days of podcasting, those, those early podcasts posts on my site there, they’re looking pretty thin nowadays. It’s been really good because I have a big featured image up there. So if you want to share it on social media and you do, you can drop that link to your social media. And that image that I have up top should come along for the ride and give you a nice looking post for your site. Okay, so that’s one thing that I did the feature image. A second thing of course was the transcribing. That’s been fun. The template that I made for the page has also been fun because it has a little section over on the other side, I think it says resources.

Jason: (06:45)
Now that’s over on the right hand side and what that allows you to do is it allows you to go in and check out a couple of things that I have written and that is, Hey, if you like this show, here’s how you go subscribe to it on your podcast player. If you like this show, here’s how you can share it with other people. Right? So those have been kind of fun. So my template now feels a lot more professional than it did in the early days. So I raised my game there. And now the downside is that it takes more time or really, uh, it takes more time to go ahead and creates everything that’s in that episode template. But I just think it makes for a much more professional look.

3) iTunes is King, but iTunes will not Save You

All right, lesson number three, iTunes is King, but iTunes will not save you all right?

Jason: (07:28)
Uh, in the miracle of social media. So yeah, I have heard for a long, long time that the majority of podcasts are served through iTunes. Now you’re also seeing other places come up. Of course, Google play audio a has shows or Google podcast, uh, they have shows. Uh, we’re also seeing things like Stitcher, Spotify, iHeartRadio, right? So you’re finding a lot of those larger platform sites are, are they are, are coming around on podcasting as well, but still they, they really make up the long tail. Uh, so while they’re out there, I can’t say that they are driving a staggering amount of, of traffic to most people’s podcasts, most people who are out there. Yeah. And, and making a go of it on podcasting. They are distributing through iTunes. However, what I have found, uh, if I had a show on NPR, well that’s different, right?

Jason: (08:18)
Because I would have all kinds of distribution. Uh, I do not have a show on NPR, right? It is, it is me. So the question is, well who in the world’s this Jason Guy, right? Why should I be listening to him? So, right, it is a big push on how to get listeners. I won’t kid you for that. But what’s been very intriguing about this is even though iTunes is King, you better be out there. You better have some kind of social media strategy. Okay. Cause while I am getting about half of my listens through iTunes, the other 50% right now I’m driving myself through the social media campaign, right? Uh, and that’s where I want to talk about a great product called CoSchedule. 

4) Coschedule

CoSchedule and this is bullet point number four. Okay. So first one was a block scheduling is key. Second one is my podcast template.

Jason: (09:08)
I’ve raised my game there. Third iTunes is King, fourth one is coast schedule. Now with CoSchedule, it allows me to take all of my social media marketing that I want to do and I can do that all in one place, so that makes it really convenient. I don’t have to go to Facebook and schedule all of my episodes in Facebook. I don’t have to go then over to LinkedIn scheduling LinkedIn, then come back to my Facebook business page and schedule everything there. Coast schedule allows me to schedule everything all in one place and it has this really sexy template on the inside that not only allows you to schedule your posts on the day of release, but it also allows you to come back and do some duplicate posting later on, right? So you can do a social campaign on one of my podcasts, for example.

Jason: (09:57)
I’m going to go ahead and post that out to my Facebook page. Of course the day that it releases, but I’m also going to post at several more times. And the cool thing is this automated template that CoSchedule has allows you to stack this up in a hurry. So it’s really, really fun. So CoSchedule is a big deal. Uh, that’s, that is my tool that I’m using to help me get all of my stuff out there on the different social media channels.

5) People Are Listening!

Okay. Question is “Jason, are people even listening?” Well, here’s the big aha is that yes, in fact, people are listening and what’s, what’s really been a big aha for me here on the are people listening. I can go into my metrics and I can see, okay, on a certain day in this past 30 days, uh, yeah, I am getting listens. I mean I am getting way more listens per week than I was getting when I was trying to do this weekly last year.

Jason: (10:50)
Right? So back in season one, I was trying to just do a weekly podcast and honest to goodness, I’m getting not just seven times, right? Publishing seven days, you’d expect seven times a result. I’m getting probably 10 or more times the listens now publishing a daily podcast. Then I was getting publishing it weekly. Okay. So yeah, people are listening. The big surprise for me is if you go into this expecting, Oh, if people hear my show, they’re automatically going to go to my website and buy my whatever, right? Or subscribe for my whatever. And if you are are getting into podcasting, looking for those kinds of metrics in the early days, you may be really disappointed in what you get out of that.

What I have received, and I’ve heard this, that this, this story right here, this aha moment, this insight echoes across many other people who are very well established and podcasting and that is that I’ll talk to somebody and be in our face to face conversation with them and I’ll say, Oh yeah, well I, I was talking about that particular topic on my podcast.

Jason: (11:57)
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I heard that. I heard that podcast episode right now. Had I not brought that up and had I not said the buzzword podcast, they probably wouldn’t have ever shared with me that they were one of my listeners, a writer. They had heard that episode, but it was just the fact that I brought it up. People will end up listening to your show for a very long time before they will ever appear on any kind of a sales funnel, or they will ever appear on your radar in any identifiable form. So people that have been in the podcasting years will say, gosh, Jason, I just had this person buy my whatever it is, workshop or my, whatever it is, program. “This guy told me he was listening to me for three years and then jumped right in for my highest product.” Okay. So if you’re thinking in terms of sales funnel on this person’s gonna sign up for my lead magnet and then I’m going to nurture them, and then they’re going to upsell and yeah, it podcasting from what I found doesn’t always work that way.

Jason: (12:57)
Sure, you’re going to get some. But by and large, podcasting is a great awareness and activity and is a phenomenal scalable awareness activity. Right? And these episodes, let’s face it, folks, most of the time these things are evergreen, right? So this audio that I’m using now, I can use two years from now and what have just as much value. So Evergreen’s a big deal. Now I’ve learned a topic, we’re going to go ahead and shift gears here. So that was my top five lessons that I’ve learned.

Offshoots or Strategic Byproducts

What are the offshoots? Right? So a mentor of mine from years back, Dan Sullivan uses used to use this term called strategic byproducts, right? So you had this goal and you’re aiming towards the goal and as you’re progressing towards the goal, there’s going to be this thing that happens off to the side that could be even bigger then the goal you were approaching it’s, or the goal you were chasing originally.

Jason: (13:49)
So my goal was, let me publish a podcast every day for 30 days. What is my offshoot? What is my strategic by-product here?

A) Monday Morning Check In

And well, the offshoot for me has been the format of the Monday morning check-in, right? So I kind of take off my marketing hat on Mondays and I put on my sales manager hat and I start asking for very, very specific commitments from people. Like a true, honest to goodness sales manager would. Right? And it’s been really eyeopening to me to see that, that format, right? So I’m doing it as a podcast, but Holy cow, that format in and of itself, I could take that a number of places, right? I can end up doing a Facebook live session, right? Or I can end up doing a webinar or whatever your zoom session, whatever you want to call it, a live session, a live version of that on Monday mornings.

Jason: (14:34)
And that could be a killer thing too. I mean there’s just a number of ways that I could slice that particular aha moment or that particular product, that show format and use it. And of course this block scheduling that I’d mentioned earlier.

B) Block Scheduling

So I’m of course doing the block scheduling and recording podcast. What I realized when I got my podcast workflow down Pat, so this is the second big offshoot. If I can do this production thing very well, why can’t I do it with video, right? If I could do the audio version, why not video? Well guys, in the past 30 days, I’ve also recorded a dozen videos that I have published and some of those are on YouTube and some of those are on private channel. And some of those are now Facebook live, right? But I’ve done also a dozen other videos now.

Jason: (15:23)
I love video. I like podcasts and podcasting is fun. I get, I get a kick out of it, but I, man, let me tell you what, if you really want to get me jacked up, do video. I mean, I love the idea of doing videos, so this has really opened my eyes to my capability as a solo producer right now, heavens to Betsy. Once I get to hire somebody, a production assistant to help me with this, it’s just going to be off the chart. So anyway, that’s a big deal. Really big deal. So those are my two offshoots. Closing it up here. What am I going to do next? Three things I’m going to do next here after I’ve done this, 30 days of podcasting. Well, Holy cow, I’m going to keep podcasting, right? My intent is of course, to do this daily and I’ve seen the results and the benefits of doing this daily.

Jason: (16:05)
So yeah, why not keep it up? It’s working. Why not just keep doing it? Next one is I’m going to establish some metrics. So I’m able to see how many listens I have a day, how many or how many downloads I get per day. That’s been great. That’s been really consistent. So really happy with that growth. And the next thing is, all right, so let’s just start measuring this. How can I get intentional about growing it? How can I get intentional about taking my podcast, downloads my audience and growing that by a factor of 10, right? Cause right now in the early days you can get a factor of 10 growth. I mean that’s, that’s totally doable and the early days. So why not aim for that? Okay, so I’m going to establish some metrics. Number three is what I just said. They’re going to grow my audience. So once I have some metrics in place, all right, gonna put another couple processes or procedures in place to grow that audience and grow those numbers of downloads and just grow the influence, grow the reach.

Jason: (16:57)
All right everyone. So that’s it. Kind of a longish episode here, but had a lot to convey. So I just wanted to share with you that if you are starting some activity, some outreach activity that top of the funnel, you know, way high up the awareness, the, I don’t like this term, but brand building, right? So if you’re kind of starting some of those, those activities and you’re expecting some results out of it, I truly think you can get it. I’ve just done it for 30 days. I’m getting results. I would love to work with you and share more of this with you and help you grow your outreach efforts. So, Hey, we’d love for you to pop over to my website, RenewableConfidence.com check out the Signature Program page. So you’re going to say link up over in the top right called signature program. Dive into that and would love to work with you and would love to help you experience the same results that I’m getting. All right everyone. You guys have a great day and take care. We’ll talk to you soon. Bye. Bye.