Top Lessons from Producing 200 Podcast Episodes and Crossing 200,000 Downloads

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Welcome to the Entre MD Podcast, where it's all about helping amazing physicians just like you, embrace entrepreneurship so you can have the freedom to live life and practice medicine on your terms. I'm your host, Dr. Una. Well, hello. Hello, my friends. Welcome back to another episode of the Entre MD Podcast. I want to start off by saying I am so honored that you keep coming back to listen and listen and listen again. And if you're a new listener, and this is your first episode, welcome, welcome. This is the place for physician entrepreneurs to hang out twice a week, every Monday and Thursday, get a new episode that will inspire you and give you practical steps to stay in momentum in your business. And this is one of the tools that we are using for the mass business education of physicians. And we are going to be the leaders in healthcare space inside and outside the exam room. We are going to be the people who enjoy our careers and have financial freedom. That's what we're going to do. Okay, so on the 3rd of March, something amazing happened. We released episode 200 of the Entre MD podcast. And on that same day, we surpassed 200,000 downloads. So episode 200 and 200,000 downloads. And this was a secret. Now, I'm very clear on vanity metrics, right? And so, you know, I keep my eye on my downloads and all of that stuff, but it's a vanity metric in a way. But I was still like, oh, we're getting to 200. It would be really nice if we hit 200,000 downloads. But I knew I couldn't push for that because that was the same week that the EntreMD method book went live. And so it would make no sense to promote this, to get a specific download number and not promote the book. Right. And so it was one of those things that, you know, I just did the regular things that I did. And so on that day, when I saw that we cry, I think I woke up and I looked at our downloads, and it was 199,951. I was like, oh, my goodness, it's going to happen today. You know? And so when we crossed it, it was really exciting, really surreal moment. And I was like, okay, so what are the things I learned from podcasting and doing 200 episodes? That's a lot of episodes surpassing 200,000 downloads. And I sat down and I typed them all up. And actually somebody in the Entremd Business School had posted something about podcasting. It was Dr. Whaley Gray. She is the host of the Dare to Dream Physician podcast, and you should check that out as well. And so I posted in the group as well. And so I'm just gonna talk about those things. And you may not be a podcaster at this point, so maybe you don't do a podcast, maybe do a YouTube channel or you do a blog or anything else, but you're going to have a lot to learn from this, so I want you to lean into it, and we'll go into those 10 things. Okay? So the first thing is just start. And it's funny that I talked about Whaley Gray earlier because, you know, she listened to a podcast episode the way you're listening to a podcast episode, and she had wanted to do a podcast. And I said, look, you've been meaning to do a podcast. Just go do it. And she did it. And she's been podcasting for over six months at this point, and she. She's blown away when she hears the stories of people telling her, your podcast has made this difference in my life. And she's seen all those reviews, and her work is meaningful. And I think her. Even her very first client, she got from her podcast, right? And so I'm telling you today what I said on that day, what she heard, and, you know, start her own podcast. Just start. Just start. There will be a thousand and one reasons why you shouldn't. I don't know what gear I should use. I don't Know who edited. I don't know how to edit. I don't know what platform to use. I don't know how to do this. May I remind you that you're a physician, and if there's anything you're good at, you're really good at learning. Okay? Really, really, really good at learning. I have done two episodes on, you know, starting a podcast and all of that. We will link to those in the show notes, so you can check those there and get to it. Okay? But the idea is just start. Because if I didn't start, I would never have hit episode 200. I would never have surpassed 200,000 downloads. It just would not have happened. You starting makes everything else possible. Okay? You starting. And it is okay to start. Messy. When I say messy, I don't mean mediocre. When I say messy, I mean excellent. And excellent means doing the best with the resources you have at the time. When I started this podcast, I started with my iPhone and the headphones that come with the iPhone. That's it. That's what I had. And you know, my brother, I made him do the editing. I didn't realize I could do that on Fiverr. And I had him find the music and put it in, and boom, we were off to the races. Okay, and that episode, episode one has been listened to more than 4,000 times, right? And so just start now. Of course, if you're a listener to this podcast, you don't have to start with your iPhone or your AirPods. We've. We' taught a lot around creating content and, you know, what gear you can use. And if you have questions, you can always post them in the ontramd Facebook group. If you're not a part of it, you know, just go to Facebook in the search bar, put it ontramd. You'll find the group and you can come join us. Okay, so just start. Number two is stay consistent. Okay? Stay consistent. And so what I said there is if you consistently publish, they will consistently listen. Okay? If you consistently publish, they will consistently listen. And so if you set a cadence like, I'm going to publish once a week, I don't recommend any less frequently than that. But of course, you know, if twice a month is what you can do, then it is what it is, right? The best frequency is the one you can keep up with. Okay? And so if you're once a week, then once a week. If you're on Mondays, then do Mondays. And what will happen is you'll start noticing people would create a routine around your routine, right? And so, for instance, I published every Monday when we did only one episode in the beginning, one episode a week. And you know, it was Monday morning, it usually will go up about midnight. So by the time people wake up, it's there and all of that. And I started getting things like, oh, you're my morning commute on Monday, or you're my evening walk on Monday. I didn't expect that. But what had happened was people had built routines around my routine, right? So I want you to imagine that people are like kind of put you into every Tuesday, but they never know what Tuesday you actually show up and all of that. Then you're not allowing people build a routine around your routine. So you show up once in a while. They will listen once in a while or they will watch once in a while. Okay? So stay consistent. The third thing is stay focused. Stay focused. People need to know what to expect with you. Now, if you come onto the Entre MD podcast, there are a few things, you know, you know, I'm going to be addressing physicians. You know, I'm going to be talking about entrepreneurship. You know, I'm going to do some mindset stuff, some inspirational stuff. You know, you will leave with practical action steps. And so people have come to know what to expect. So there'll be variations of all this will be with different topics and all of that, but they know. They know. So you want to talk to your ideal person about the pain you solve, fixing that problem, solutions you would offer. And you want to talk about that every single time.

Right.

You want people to be able to predict, you know, because sometimes people, let me say, have an interview show and you just let anybody come in to talk about anything, then what happens is your ideal client, your ideal person listens. And sometimes your content is relevant and sometimes it's not. Right. And that creates a problem in itself. People need to predict. For instance, I live so many lives at the same time and there's so many things I can talk about on the on Trendy podcast. I've been married for 15 years. I can talk about that. I have four children. I can talk about that. I homeschool my older too. I can talk about that. We do real estate. I can talk about that. We pastor a church. I can talk about that too. I try to take really good care of myself, health wise. We can talk about that. Now there are elements of this that will feature in some of my podcast episodes, but I don't take off on tangents. Right. You know what to expect when you come. So kind of Decide when someone comes to listen to my podcast or watch my YouTube channel, this is what they will get. Right? And you weave everything to get the people that one result. Okay? So that's kind of the way that works. So if I'm talking to a parent on the podcast about marriage, I will be coming from the standpoint of marital stress and the impacts it has on business. Do you see what, what I'm saying? Like, so it's all one thing. There's focus, right? So that's number three. And when I say that now, don't let it take you into a box where you're like, you make it too restrictive where you're like, I can't talk about anything. No, but just think about your listener. Think about you. Why do you come to listen to the EntreMD podcast? Right? Think about it. You have a specific reason, and that reason brings you back again. Again. Because I stay on that reason. Right? In the same way, do that for somebody else. Right? Think about it that way. Okay? Number four. Number four. Oh, my goodness, I wish I could make this number. 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Don't quit. Don't quit. The mortality rate of podcasts is 50%. 5, 0. There are 2 million podcasts. 5, 0. Right? It's so easy to quit. There are going to be times that are going to be tough. You can outlast those times. Okay? There will be times where you won't feel like recording. I cannot tell you how many times I didn't feel like recording. Then I recorded and I was like, I don't even know how good this stuff is. And those have been some of the most downloaded episodes. And the episodes that I got the most feedback on. Right? And so don't quit. I have recorded in hotel room closets. I have recorded in cars. I have recorded in between coaching clients. I have done all kinds of things. Like when it looked like I wouldn't be able to meet up sometimes I've done really well with my batching where I'm never under pressure to record. But there have been times where I have been right. Don't quit. Don't quit. You might go, like, I run out of stuff that you know to say. I did an episode on how to create your three month content calendar in 60 minutes or less. Take a look at that batch if you must. So you can take podcast breaks. That's what I do. I would batch so I can have whole months where I'm not podcasting at all. So I'm taking a break. But my podcast Isn't taking a break. Like, nobody knows that I'm not podcasting, right? And so, you know, schedule breaks and all that, but don't quit. Your message is so important. So, so, so important. Okay? Number five, create wins for your listeners. Okay? Create wins for your listeners. Every time you do an episode, you want to be thinking, what win can this create for my listener? What limiting belief will they get rid of? What action step will they finally be able to take? What action step do they now know they can take that will produce this kind of result? What confusion did I get rid of for them, right? Every time they listen? You don't want to have a fluffy podcast or a fluffy YouTube channel. You want to have stuff that's helpful, and you don't have to do all the. We don't want to give them constipation, right? But you want to give them something that will create a quick win for them, okay? And people should feel like they should be paying you for your podcast, right? It should be so good. They should be like, man, I should have paid for this. Right? And you can pay. If you. If you like a podcast like, you like this podcast, you can pay. The way you pay me, the way I would appreciate it is share, share, share with reckless abandon. Share with reckless, abandoned. Post about it, tag us on it, hashtag ontramd. Spread the word about it. You know, my goal is to create wins where listening to my podcast gives you more than some of the courses you signed up for. Okay? That's kind of my attitude towards it. Okay? People should be able to share how your podcast or YouTube channel change their lives. And you might go like, yeah, that's why I'm not doing this, because I don't think I can change anybody's lives. Of course you can. Everybody has problems, okay? And you solve problems. You're an entrepreneur. That's what you do. So talk about it a lot. Okay? All right. Number six is a big one. Don't let the fear of criticism stop you. Let me help you here. You will be criticized. You will be criticized. Whether you start a podcast or you don't. You will be criticized. Whether you grow your YouTube channel to, you know, 500,000 subscribers or not. You will be criticized. You will be. So when you're going out to put out content, many of you will feel the fear of criticism and feel it, but do it anyway, because you will be criticized. There is no way around that. And the bigger you get, it'll seem like the more criticism you get. But if you look at the Percentages, maybe it's the same. You know, you're just around more people and it's okay. The price for greatness, the prize for greatness, is the ability to rise in spite of criticism. Everyone who's great has to. Has to figure that one out. You will be criticized. Okay? And I have someone who put a one star review on the Entre MD podcast. I have no idea what the problem is, right? I'm like, okay, you know, and so, okay, but what if that would be the reason why I would stop? I'm not stopping because of that. I'm not doing that. I have a message to get out there. I have doctors who need an mba, the real mba, so that they can thrive in this space that we find ourselves in. I have doctors who need to figure out how to make their businesses more profitable, how to scale, how to buy their time back. And so I'm going to keep going. So don't let the fear of criticism stop you. Now. One of the things you can do with criticism is, you know, this takes a little bit of learning. Okay? Remember, I think I've talked about it many times on the podcast. The first time that I got a bad review for my private practice, sounds like I almost died. It was so bad. I read it every day. I mourned, you know, I was like, why would she say that? And this person was still a patient, smiles at me every day, but left us this really stinky one star review. But anyway, at that point, I may not have been able to do what I'm about to tell you now, but I didn't know about it, so who knows, right? But this is it. As you mature, what you will do with criticism is this. You'll evaluate it. If there's any truth to it. You're like, oh, this is an opportunity for me to get better, right? And so you take whatever you learn from it, you apply it. Great, right? Like, great, let's go. If there's no truth to it, you just throw it away, right? I don't take the emotion with it. Maybe not the emotion, the story. Like that means we're bad. That means we should go away. No, it just means you should improve. People complain about the iPhone all the time, right? People complain about the Internet, phone service, all of this all the time. Doesn't mean they should go away. They just get better if there's truth to it. Otherwise they throw it away. Okay? Anytime I'm like, you know, criticism, we should make it, then it's perfect and then nobody's complaining. I Actually go and I Google Disney, okay? I Google Disney. I may look for one of the parks. And then when I do that, I go and I look at the reviews and I'm like, Walt Disney has 4.7 stars. That means you have thousands of people who went on there to leave one star reviews. I'm like, that's Disney. Okay? So it is what it is, okay? So don't let the fear of criticism stop you. Number seven. Enjoy the journey. There is no destination. The journey is the destination, right? And so don't wait till. Oh, by the time I have 25 episodes, by the time I have 100 episodes, by the time I have 700,000 downloads. Don't do that. Celebrate it all. Enjoy it. Enjoy the journey. Enjoy who you're becoming in the process. Enjoy the skills you're building. Enjoy all of it. I celebrated the first episode, the first hundred downloads, the first thousand downloads, the 10th episode, the 25th episode. Like, I celebrated all of it. Enjoy all of it. Right? If you wait until, you will never celebrate, because the until is a moving target, right? When you get to 10, it's like, well, 10 is not really a thing. When I get to 40, 40 is not really a thing. When I get to 100, 100 is not really a thing. When I get to a thousand, there will always be something. So enjoy it. Enjoy podcasting, Enjoy helping people. Enjoy getting the feedback. Enjoy crossing milestones. Enjoy it all. Enjoy all of it. I've enjoyed every bit of this journey, and I had no idea it will be as fun and as impactful and as. As it has been. I mean, think about it. My life is literally touching the world because I'm a podcaster, Literally. And it's so humbling to think about it. I'm like, how did this happen? How did I become this person? And that's what can happen. If you will do this consistently and if you would do your best at it, really do your best at it. So enjoy it. Enjoy it. At the time of this recording, this podcast has been listened to in 115 countries. When to think about that. 115 countries. So crazy just thinking about it, right? So enjoy it. Enjoy it. All right, number eight, own your message. Own your message. So, for example, I have the privilege of working with a doctor in the Ontram d Business School, Dr. Zigenbein, and she is the host of a podcast called Winning at Fibromyalgia. Right? And it is such important work because people with fibromyalgia, sometimes their symptoms are ignored. Nobody kind of understands what's going on with them. They're, you know, feel unheard and all of this stuff. And she is the person who helps them win. Helps them win like you have it. This is your diagnosis. This is what it means. And they feel heard. They can get help, whether it's from the mindset piece, what they can do with their diet, all of that. This is what she does. There are millions of people with fibromyalgia. There are probably thousands or hundreds of thousands of them who feel like they are alone. And she is the person bringing that message of hope. She is the person bringing the inspiration. She's the person bringing mindset mastery. She's the person bringing. This is how you practically handle and live with this. It is so powerful. And so what do you do with the message like that? You own it. You own it. You speak about it. You speak confidently about it. You speak. There's an authority about it. You put your message everywhere. You invite people to be a part of your movement. You own your message. You don't be apologetic. You show up authoritatively. You show up confidently. People are looking for leaders to follow. So in the case of Dr. Zigenberg, there are 4 million adults in the U.S. with fibromyalgia. That's 2% of the adult population. They need what she does, Right? So own your message. What do I do in Entre MD I talk to physicians. How many physicians? Are they? A million. How many are burned out? 4 out of 5. How many of them would not recommend being a physician to other people? 78% have my work cut out for me. Right? I own my message. Because you might think, well, you know, what I do doesn't really matter. I don't know if anybody's listening and all of that. No, no, no, no, no. You own what you do. You talk about what you do. You talk about it confidently because there are people waiting for you. Waiting for you. Okay, all right, so that's number eight. Number nine, remember, okay, we're talking to physician entrepreneurs here. Your content is a tool to grow your business. Okay? It is a tool to grow your business. And so, of course, the vast majority of the people who listen to you, who you help, may never work with you, but because you apply, number five, which is creating wins for your listeners, you help them, right? You would change their life and all that. But there is a percentage of people who work with you, and if you want that percentage to work with you, then you have to remember that your content is a tool to grow your business. So that means invite People to work with you tell them, hey, come sign up for what I'm doing or come to this webinar that I'm doing. You know, schedule, call to me to talk, come check me out in my private practice. You want to make sure that you are giving people the opportunity to work with you. People do not answer questions you're not asking. So if you're not asking them to schedule consults, they can't say yes. If you're not asking them to come to your private practice, they won't say yes if you're not asking them. Right? So people do not answer questions you're not asking. So the only way to get yeses is to ask and you may be feeling well. No, I just want to serve the people and give them a lot of content. I don't want to mix it in. I don't want to tell them to work with me. Right? Remember, businesses solve problems and receive a thank you note called money. Right? So are you saying you don't want to solve problems, you don't want to help? Right? There are people you'll be able to help with your content. There are people who want to take it to the next step, right? There are people whose lives are being changed by the podcast, but there are people who say, I want to be in the business school. I want to be in that community. I want to be able to meet with you every week for those live sessions. I want to go for retreats with you. I want to do all those things, right? So for those people, it is up to me to continue to make the offer, like, come join the business school, come work with us and all of that, right? You can serve and earn. I know we've been taught that lie that once you bring in, you know, then come work with me, that you're making everything muddy. You're not. You can serve and earn. Okay, all right, so that's number nine. The only time when it's really bad is if you are not creating content. Like if your podcast episode or YouTube channel episode is a sales pitch and that's bad, right? But if you are giving value, I believe in content being win, win, which means it's a win for you, it's a win for me. Well, not in that order. It's a win for you and then a win for me. But it needs to be a win, win situation. This is what I teach all the time. Win, win situation. Otherwise, it's a parasitic relationship, right? On one side or the other, if both people are winning, then everybody's Happy. Okay. All right. Number 10 on your podcast, especially Physicians, we've been academic and all of these stuff, so we want to sometimes be very academic. But you want to tell stories. You want to tell a lot of stories. You want to tell a lot, a lot, a lot of stories, okay? Stories are amazing. Human beings love stories. That's why we watch movies. That's why people, not me, but people, love reality tv. That's why people read novels. People love stories. The most attractive content, the most binge worthy content will have stories. So your stories, stories of people you've worked with. Stories of how you started that private practice. Like relevant stories, but stories, okay, you want to tell a lot of those. I've told you about my book launch. I've told you about my podcast. I've told you about how one time I went to speak on stage and started getting visions of me falling down and cracking my teeth with blood everywhere, right? And you know, just to show you that everybody gets these fears when you want to go speak. And I've told you all kinds of stories. Stories of my clients, stories of everything. Because facts tell and stories sell, okay? Facts tell and stories sell. In your stories of your vulnerability, people will find strength. I tell my stories of my struggles and my limiting beliefs and the things I had to overcome, because in that you find strength. It takes away a superstar status from me because it's like, oh, wait, oh, she had that issue. I'm not even that bad, so that means I might go forward. People find strength in your vulnerability. All right? So stories trigger transformation. People love stories. Tell stories. Tell your stories, Tell client stories, tell all kinds of stories. I'm going to throw in a bonus one. Now, I've talked about all the things you do with your podcast, but there is one thing that is almost as important as all 10 put together. You have to promote your podcast. It doesn't matter how good it is, if you don't tell people about it, they are not going to listen to it. You have to promote your podcast. And you know, there's so many things you can do to promote your podcast. There's so many things you can do to get new listeners. But I'm just going to leave you with one, which sometimes is the most scary one of all the options, and that is to be a guest on other people's podcasts. That's the fastest way, the most consistent way, the most reliable way to grow your podcast. Because if you're posting on social media, it's the people who already know about you that you're telling about it. They already know if you're sharing in your email list. And I'm not saying don't do that, but those people already know you. Where are the people who do not know you? They're listening to other podcasts, and people who listen to podcasts listen to podcasts. Right. And so the more podcasts you go on, the more people find you, the more your audience grows, the more your downloads grow. Okay, so you want to promote, and one of the best ways to do that is to be a guest on other people's podcasts. All right, so what do I want you to do? Well, I want you to take your next step. So if you're like, I've always known that I need to be a podcast. I need to be a YouTuber, this is the time. So it's time to set that up. Okay. And you can look at the episodes in the show notes so you can get some pointers for that. The second thing is, if you've already started now, it's time to do it like you mean it. It's time to grow. It's time to scale it. Just pick one or two things and add it on. Right? You don't have to add a million things. One or two. Then you can come back a month later and come listen again, one or two things and add that on. If you haven't been promoting, you want to start promoting. Okay. Yay. All right, so let me tell you what I'm looking forward to. I am looking forward to a time when, when you go to look at the top 100 podcasts for every category. They're physicians in every category. Right? I just checked ours. A week ago. We were, like, number 61 for entrepreneurship in the U.S. that is so crazy. That is beyond insane. Okay. But I'm looking forward to a time where you look in all the categories, and we're represented because we are owning our voices. Okay? We may not get there today, but if we start today, we can get there on another day. Okay? So go start, go grow, Go scale your stuff, own it, do it like a boss, and I will see you on the next episode of the OnTraMD podcast. Hey, if you love listening to the OnTreMD podcast, I want to invite you to join OnTreMD on demand. It is my signature subscription program that you gives you access to a library of business courses designed to help you do one thing as a physician entrepreneur, and that is to thrive. Just head out to entremd.com ondemand and.

I'd love to have you join us.

See you on the inside.