Assets Versus Episodes

I want to chat about two things on this episode. Number one, I want to chat about our podcast partnership mindset that we're creating assets versus episodes, but I also want to chat about math. A lot of podcasters wake up realizing, oh, crap, I have to get an episode out. And they get that episode out. Or maybe they're a little bit more advanced and they've got it on the regular schedule or that type of thing, but the fact of the matter is, it just is still, oh, man, I have to get that episode out. And they do the episode and they think to themselves, well, you know what? This episode is fine. And there'll be a new one a week later. And if this one doesn't reach the masses, that's okay, because I've got another one coming. And it's not necessarily the worst way to approach life, and sometimes everybody has to do that. But I want to suggest something very different. I want to suggest this idea that the podcaster's job, at least the strategic podcaster's job, is not to produce an episode, but to produce an asset. What's the difference between the two? An asset lives on past the release time for the show. Nobody keeps videotapes, or at least no sane person keeps videotapes of the evening news or what CNN said last week. It is a churn and burn type of situation. And yeah, sure, there might be a podcast that needs to do that, but as you strategize out what you're doing, think about what would happen if your podcast was just as viable, just as important, a year later, two years later, three years later, I have clients where that is the exact case. We, in our monthly reporting for everyone, we give a new content ratio, and the new content ratio is any given month. In October 2018, what percentage of downloads were content that was released in 2018? I have clients that are less than 25%, meaning that less than one out of every four downloads in any given month is actually content from that month. People go back into the back catalog to take a look at what they have, download it, and go from there. This is obviously strategic and obviously wonderful, and obviously the type of thing that a podcaster would want to do. But what I want to suggest is this. Think about the math on something like this. If you have a podcast with a week, two week, even a month shelf life, you're only going to be able to get so many people in that week, day, month, two month type of time span. But if you're building something that goes forever, even if it's Less per week. You have week after week after week after week after week to deal with this. My book, the business podcasting bible. It was a bad deal for me. It was not the most ideal contract, if you will. And the fact of the matter is the book's still for sale and on a regular basis I will get email from people who say, hey, I read your book, I like your vision, but you don't mention the iPhone. Can I essentially get some free consulting? Fact of the matter is, the book came out two years before the iPhone did. Now, pretty cool that the vision is still valid. Pretty cool that it's still something that people read and want and can pick up. But here's the thing, it is a 14 year old vision that's still valid. I've got clients with episodes 5, 6 years that are still valid. I was recently tracking some changes have been happening in the itunes ranking and there's a podcast in their Seth Godin startup school podcast. It's like four or five years old and it's still in the top 200 of management marketing because they're still getting downloads on a regular basis. If you develop a podcast that is just as important in a week, in a month, in a year, in a decade, you're going to be at an entirely different place. And if you do that, the option and the leverage that this affords you is not just in the longevity of your podcast, but it also gives you an entirely different framework for other things that you're doing. What do I mean by that? If you go into the itunes directory to go into the itunes store, not the podcast part, and search my name, I've got a cd. I've got a spoken word CD called how the ipod changed marketing forever and what you can do about it or something like that. This was a recording that I did at a prestigious fancy Ivy League school and we built it to be a CD. Each element of it was 3, 4 minutes long about the track of a CD. The whole thing was absolutely designed to last as long as it could. And because it was designed to last as long as it could, the CD still for sale and I still see, and it's not that big at all, but I still see royalties from it. It's really quite interesting. Could I release that series as a podcast? I certainly could. Could I take those transcripts and release them as a book? I certainly could. In the book get this how to podcast. Currently at version four, when I record this version five, we're putting together soon, I I've got transcripts from the podcast report, the episode I did with John Lee Dumas is transcribed in the book. And I didn't ask John about what he was doing this week or what this Givens month revenue stream was, but I asked John how he produced and that production process was viable and valuable. I did an interview with Russell Brunson a couple episodes back. Not a couple. By couple, I mean dozens and dozens of episodes back. And we deconstructed an entire strategy that Russell had for producing his show, which when we did the interview was called Marketing in youn Car. It's now called like Digital Marketing Secrets or something like that. That interview is transcribed and put in the book. That interview is on media players that I give away to people. That interview still brings people to us as a business, saying, hey, I read in your interview with Russell what he did. I love your thinking. I read what John did. I love your thinking. Can we hire you? I want you as the podcaster. As you ponder what you're doing to ponder trying to create something bigger than a podcast, larger than a podcast, not more important than a podcast, but just something that is not just a show that someone listens to this Tuesday, because next Tuesday they are going to listen to something different. If you, you are in a podcast where it has a shelf life, I'm not saying throw it away, although I am saying this might be something that you want to reconsider. This might be something that you want to re examine. This might be something that you want to, I don't know, go to a new season and start thinking long term. We are seeing the new content ratio numbers go down and down and we're seeing podcasts become more and more profitable. Because with the numbers, it's not what it can do for me this week, it's what it can do for me this week, this month, this year, this decade, this format, other formats. You think that way about a podcast and you might be just surprised how far the whole thing takes you. And these numbers, you know, if there's no profit in this week, is there profit? Maybe in this month, is there profit? Maybe this year is their profit. Maybe these next five years, maybe this is the jump you need, maybe it isn't. We'll find out. We'll chat, talk to you soon. Bye.