Here's My Vision For The Industry - The Podcast Report With Paul Colligan Episode #98

Here's my vision for the industry. It's the podcast report, episode 98, show notes, links, conversation and more@thepodcastreport.com 9, 8. Hey, this is Paul Culligan and this is the Podcast Report, the show where I show you the podcaster, how to reach more with your message and how to profit more from your content. I tune a podcaster, been doing this for over a decade. Got books, got consulting clients, that kind of stuff. But today, about you, the big idea here, and it's in response to last week's episode, is that the power of podcasting isn't in doing it in the right way. It's in doing it the right way for you. Now, what does this mean? Well, first, quickly, a special announcement. This is episode 98. In two weeks, I'll be releasing episode 100. I will be recording episode 100 live, Wednesday, July 13th at 6:00pm Pacific at an event here in Portland with the Portland Podcaster Meetup. Should be a lot of fun. I will stream that live from the webpage@thepodcastreport.com 100. I've also got a link in the show notes to that event. If you're in Portland and you can make it, it should be a ton of fun. With that said and done, let's chat. Setting it up last week was a downer. There are some things about the industry that keep me up at night. There are some problems with the podcast space, the podcast world, if you will, that is doing us more damage than good and in some ways retarding growth and just not good stuff. And I chatted about that week. I shared from the heart last week. Many of you responded, thank you so much. But of course, I don't want to be the complainer who says, this sucks, this sucks, this sucks. So this week it's what could we do better? I think we can do better. That's the why for this. I think we could do much better. And I think if we focused on doing better, I think we could have a really profound effect in the podcasting industry, in the podcasting space. So looking here at my notes, look at that. I've got seven. That's not the magic number picked on purpose. That's just seven things that I've got for us. And these are key. These are vital. If we started doing this as an industry, we would do really well. Number one, speaking to the different models of podcasting. See, we have podcaster A who believes I got to do it this way. And that's all they speak to and Then if somebody believes they have to come into it differently and say, well, this guy only talks about A, do the others not exist? What do we do? Maybe they say disparaging things about B and C and D and that kind of thing. If we speak to different models, then the industry will do better. And the different models in podcasting is part of what makes the podcasting world so powerful. If we embrace the many models now, feel free to share yours and why yours works the best for you and maybe what you're the most excited about it. But do speak to the other models, let people know there are other options out there and we will all be at a better place. Explain. The power of podcasting is in doing it the way that makes sense for you. If you are in an industry where it makes sense to do podcasting differently than I do podcasting, great, as long as it makes sense. That's the dialogue. The different models out there are the dialogue. Now, let me give you a P.S. here, let me give you an idea. The models that have survived so far are going to continue to survive. The industry is still going to have many of the things out there that we might not appreciate, might not enjoy that type of thing, but it's there. The different models in technology, microphone usage and, you know, can people be remote? Should people be remote? The use of phones, that kind of stuff, the timing of the podcast, how long should be the format of the podcast? Is there one format that is exactly the way it needs to be done? The platform that you host on, the platform that you stream on, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. There are a lot of different models. I have mine, I like mine, I'm preferential to mine, you might be preferential to yours, but if you speak to the different models, the industry will be at a better place. That's number one. Number two, focus on what matters. Now, why do we focus on what matters? Well, number one, it's because it's what matters. But if we focus on what matters for the industry, here they are, by the way, making the industry better, making the industry easier and getting more people consuming podcasts. If we do that, if we make it easier for people to get in, if we make it a better experience when they get in, and we get more people consuming podcasts, we're all going to be at a better place. See, the thing is, we're not competing with somebody else at 8 o' clock on a Thursday night. We're at a really, really good place here. If we focus on what matters, we speak to the different models, we're going to be at a good place. Number three, we, all of us need to preach how podcasting differs from old media. Now, many podcasts look a lot like old media. Many podcasts, let's face it, are just the streaming podcast version of old media. But even then, things have changed. You look at what has happened to public radio and how all these shows are moving from public radio to podcasts. And yes, in many ways, it's still the ad, it's still the sponsor, it's this type of thing. But even the change of no longer needing all of those towers to broadcast the FM band, if you will, the ability for your audience to listen to it anytime, any place, anywhere. If we preach how podcasting differs from old media, not just the whole, well, if you're in radio, you better get into this, or you better get into this, you better do this. If we chat about how it differs offers, we're going to be at a better place. Number three. Number four, embrace competition as a means to increase your audience. I know there are folk out there who get worried and freaked out when somebody comes with a competing show. Now, I'm not saying get on each other's show and coopetition and kumbaya hand holding, but here's the thing. The more people who get into podcasting, the more people are going to listen to podcasts and the bigger your potential audience is. We are starting to see, and it's been interesting, we're starting to see people going, okay, I like podcasts. What else is out there? What am I going to do with that? If we embrace competition as a means to increase our audience, it stops from the frown on our face to the audience getting bigger. I remember a while ago, I don't even remember what show it was, but I interviewed Don McAllister from Screencast Online. He had gone to one of the Mac expos and he was chatting about it. If you don't know, Don's a fabulous guy, one of the earliest video podcasters, a great guy in the space. And it was funny because Don has this company where Don trains people on how to use Apple and iOS devices to do great things. He's at Macworld, learning the greatest things, getting ready to train, and he's looking at the Linda booth, Realizing that Linda spent more on that booth than he needs to make in the year to be really, really happy. He has Linda as competition. But realizing that people know they can get specialized, high quality content, a lot of people are leaving Linda for Don's organization anyway. This isn't about Screencasting for the iOS platform, obviously, but if you embrace competition as a means to increase your audience, it's going to give you an entirely different face. All right, three more Embrace the monetizers. I go to events and I hear crack after crack, disparaging remark after disparaging remark. I read it in the blogs, I read in the articles. I see what people say about people going just to get into this for the money. A couple of thoughts. Number one, yes, there are the get rich quickers. Now let me tell you the two about the get rich quickers. One batch of the get rich quickers, once they realize it's work, they'll leave. So just show them what the work is and they'll leave and they'll be gone. Now some a light bulb will go off. To me, this is the funny thing about multi level marketing. You take a thing like an Amway or one of those supplement organizations or whatnot, and somebody made all this money from Amway or supplements or that type of thing. No, they didn't make money from Amway or supplements. They made money because they're a great salesperson and supplements and, or Amway and, or whatever was the means for them to get that. Well, here's the thing. Some will hear about podcasting will move to Podcasting will make a great deal of money from it and move quickly and kind of inspire us to do the same. So most of the get rich quickers will leave. Some will get rich quick. But let's not worry about that. Let's embrace the monetizers. I believe deeply in the concept that Joe Polish teaches that all money earned ethically the byproduct of value creation. All money earned ethically is the byproduct of value creation. This is how we embrace monetization. What we do is we create value as podcasters. And the great thing, many of us do it at home on a desk with a simple microphone. All money earned ethically is the byproduct of value creation. Let's create value the best way. The meme should not be. Don't get into podcasting for the money. No, the meme should be. The best way to make money is to serve your audience. Anybody who serves their audience deserves to see some revenue that comes from it. If we make the focus service, the monetization will come. If we embrace the monetizers, teach them to serve, teach them to embrace that industry, we'll do great. And if the money in this industry rises, the industry will grow. We'll get More listeners and more people will be consuming your show. Enough said. Off the high horse. Okay, number six, differentiate between your agenda and the industry's agenda. This one's huge. A lot of us get excited about certain things. I'm really here because of this. I'm really here because of this. I'm really here because of this. That's fine. Be into this. Be excited about this. But differentiate the fact that the industry might be very, very different. I really love the five minute show. Great. But realize long form content is doing really, really well. I love long form content that' Realize that people like Mignon Fogarty have been doing the short term stuff. I really love live podcasting. I really hate live podcasting. I really love Skype. It doesn't matter. Differentiate between your agenda and the industry's agenda. It's part of speaking to the different models, but it's also just part of letting people understand your passion and letting people understand what's going on. This will help the confusion. But more importantly, this is one of the benefits I get having been in this for 10 years, is that podcasting has outlasted most of the agendas in this space. Podcasting has been around longer, will remain around longer, will be around longer than most of the things that people came in. I really want to do this with podcasting. They're gone. Podcasting still remains. I really want to make sure everybody uses this technology. With podcasting, that technology's gone or gotten so much better that it's barely recognizable for what they initially came on. And podcasting keeps going. Differentiate between your agenda and the industry's agenda. And then this last one, this is key. There's a big event happening this week and the passive aggressive junior high style digs. There are people who will get up on stage and won't call out someone for something, but they'll do that passive aggressive junior high dig where they'll mention them subtly or quietly. A couple things on that A, stop. B, it's childish. C, it makes us look like we're not worth the hassle. D, it makes us look like we're in junior high. That's why I called them that. And the passive aggressive junior high style digs can be on technologies. Well, at our company, we don't do this. Oh, get over it. Stop. You can speak to different models, you can speak to different technologies, but don't speak in this ridiculous way that so many of us do. It's about technologies digs, style digs, format digs, monetization digs, platform digs, training Digs. Let's stop. It's a big industry. A lot of people doing a lot of different things. A lot of them very passionate, a lot of them very smart, a lot of them with very great tech. If we get rid of these things and we speak to the different models, we can hold our hands out and bring everybody in. If we focus on what matters is these people come in, we can all be chatting about the thing that's important. When we preach how podcasting differs from old media, a lot of the frustration will go away and a lot of the opportunity that this new media provides us will come into the game. If we embrace competition as a means to increase our audience, we'll bring even more people in and it will increase our audience. If we do it correctly, if we embrace the monetizers, we're going to get even more people in and we're going to see some more money in this space because some of them will figure out some ideas and figure out some paths that we can all learn from. Then if we in our presentation differentiate between our agenda and the industry's agenda, we will grow. There are the seven thepodcastreport.com 98 so what do we do with this? A I'd love your comments. Comments podcastreport.com Twitter, Facebook, all the social ones are there. If you want to go to the podcastreport.com 98 would love a comment. Here's what we do. If you are guilty of these things, stop. If you aren't doing one of these things, start, pick and champion one of these things. A lot of you as podcasters get a chance to speak about the industry, write about the industry, talk about the industry. When you do that, embrace these things. That's why I introduced at the beginning of this, my live presentation of episode 100. I'm really gonna do what I can to fully embrace all of these. Now, I only have a brief amount of time. We purposely scheduled this to be around the length of a normal episode of the podcast report. But watch what I do and or at least listen to what I do and we should have a good time there. Then if you pick and champion one of these, you'll notice what a difference it makes. And instead of bringing the industry down, if we all work together to bring the industry up, we could be at a much better place. So let's do it. Thank you so much for listening. Wait to see what I got for you next week. Bye. Thanks for listening to this episode of the podcast report. I love interaction. Head out to thepodcastreport.com and interact with this episode or any other that you might listen to. But don't just visit the website and click play. Subscribe to The Podcast Report ThePodcastReport.com iTunes ThePodcastReport.com Stitcher ThePodcastReport.com Google Once you subscribe, once you set it up so that every time a new episode comes out, you are automatically updated, you are experiencing, you experience the power of podcasting. It's not that you have to come out to my website. It's not that you have to go anywhere. It's that the content comes straight to you. Once we understand that power, podcasting will get to a better place for all of us. So please do subscribe. Once you subscribe, let's interact. You can do it at the website or you can do it on social. ThePodcastReport.com Twitter ThePodcastReport.com Facebook Pick the social network of your choice and we are there to interact. The website's great too, but when you do social, the world sees more. Find out about podcasting more. Find out about how to make their podcast better and the world becomes a better place. So go ahead, interact with us on social media. This is the Podcast report. My name is Paul Colligan. I'm thrilled you've been listening. Please subscribe, please interact and I'll chat with you next week. Bye.