Episode 25: If I had to start from 0, this is what I would do with my podcast - DO this to hit your first 10K listens on your podcast

Welcome back to the Healthy Prophets podcast. This is Sammy Shoebox Moses. I get this question asked a lot, and it has a lot to do with the relaunch. It also has a lot to do with when you're starting a brand new show. And that question is, what would you do if you had to start all over again, starting at ground zero? And this is a huge problem with a lot of our podcasters. This is something that happens when you see POD fade. This happens a lot when people just get stuck with their show just not making the moves or the direction that they wanted it to make so that they have to start over again. And what's crazy, when I see this, it happens with some of the best shows and they just stop making episodes and things start to fall off. They lose passion for it. They've made two or 300 episodes and then they stale. What are you supposed to do with all that content you're sitting on? Gold mine. And I hate seeing that. Or on the other side, I see people that just get stuck in a frozen state and they can't get their podcast started. And this is why we wanted to make this episode for you today, because what do you do and what would I do if I started over again? And we just did this with the Healthy Profits podcast, the one you're listening to now. And this is what we're doing since we just started brand new learning what we've learned over the last three years making podcasts. And what's crazy is we had so much knowledge about things that weren't working that we just started to put them into action. And we started seeing 2 and 300 downloads on some of our episodes right away. So we know that the, the tactics are working. But more importantly, when you do some of the things I'm just about to cover with you, you have the opportunity, like us, to get clients right away as well. We ended up landing three new clients just because our show was launched and people were listening to it. And I was able to send the show out to my prospective leads and my clients just because we had put what I'm about to tell you in place. And this is what we're doing to get on track to get our first 10,000 listens with the Healthy Profits podcast. So I don't want you guys to get stuck in not doing this. This is the simple path and there's actually a download in a map for you guys to follow. Because the hardest thing that people that it's for, the hardest thing for me to watch people do is to Fumble around and go one direction and then pivot and go another direction because they don't know where to go. And it's. They don't have the roadmap. And that's what I'm about to give you guys today. And you can download that at the end of the show. But here's what we know really works when it comes to starting over. The first thing that happens is people have an idea, they think this idea is great. And so they go, I want to talk about this. I am passionate about it. I know a lot about it. So I'm just going to talk about this. And then I'm going to ask guests to come on and give me a story related to this. But what they basically fail to do is get super narrowed and niched on who they're talking to. And this is not something new that we've talked about. We talk about niching down your audience, but the reason we do that, and you're going to see this as we go down this evolve podcasting launch template and map is once you narrow down who your ideal listener is. And the question you can ask yourself is this show is for people who blank and need to blank so that they can experience blank. For example, this podcast, the Healthy Profits podcast, is for people who have a health podcast and want to learn how to monetize that podcast so that they can experience what it's like to have a viable piece of their business as a reoccurring lead generation or income builder. Right? That's what the Healthy Profits podcast has done. And if you see there's a framework there. But the framework, all that aside, is we want to help you guys narrow down and niche down who you're talking to. And that's part of the conception phase of this. So if you haven't done that, you need to really know who you're talking to. You need to know the struggles and the pains that they're going through. And then you're going to aim to solve that problem every episode. And we're going to go through some frameworks later on in the other episodes, or you might have listened to the binge framework episode that we have to help you speak to that. But the first thing we want you to do in the conception phase of this roadmap is to really narrow your audience down, know what problem you're solving and know the transformation you're taking the people on in every show and who you're talking to specifically. The second part of our map is going to be the creation phase. This is typically where blood people start. And this is actually the second phase that we really go through. And the creation phase is when you actually go in and you produce a couple of those episodes and you get them your intro and your outro, and you put some music and you make that first episode within mind, like keeping in mind the transformation you're helping those people get. But here's the kicker. You're going to get feedback before you start launching. So in the creation phase, we also suggest that you get your little piloting group together, your OGs, your original gangsters, your super fans, whatever you want to call them, and make sure that you get this starter, these episodes that you're just trying out to that group before you go live. And that's what's crazy, is people sometimes make the episodes. They don't ask their friends about it. They say, hey, my podcast. How many times have you heard this? Like, my podcast is going live next week. It's about this for health and wellness entrepreneurs. If you're a health and wellness entrepreneur, you got to listen to it. But how much better would it be if they said, I would love some feedback? I'm about to launch this show. Would you mind sitting in the VIP section with me behind the ropes and help me really design this so that it serves you? That's what the power of having a really cool piloting group will do in this creation phase. So you're going to use that piloting group. You're going to get some feedback before you go into the launch phase, and that is going to help you really figure out what they love, what transformation is the most powerful for them, and more importantly, what they really could use more of from you. A lot of times people make this. In this piloting phase, they'll go through and make two or three episodes thinking that it was one podcast that the audience would like. Usually it's an interview, like, hey, did you love my interview? Or versus my solo episode? And we all know doing interview podcasts are a lot tougher because you got to line up the guests, you got to organize and set schedule everybody. And what we found many, many times, and this is just an example, but many times we found that the folks loved the solo episodes. So when they started to map out all of their different parts of the podcast, they knew that they could do more solo episodes. So it made it a lot easier for them to save time and batch episodes because the piloting group told them what they wanted. And all this is in the creation phase. And then that takes us from the Creation phase. There's a few steps in there. Look at the roadmap. But that's two of the big things that I really love in this creation phase is how to create some episodes and then test those episodes before you get them out. It's a huge thing. And we've seen this catapult people's success with their podcast because they were able to test it and find out what the people really wanted. And that takes us into the third part, the launch phase. In the launch phase, obviously, this is where you're going to get everybody excited. This is where you're going to drip out that content and launch this puppy so that it's live and ready to go. And a couple things that we have seen not work properly in this launch phase and that we want to make sure that you guys don't do, is that people don't build their proper listener funnel. They don't get their RSS feeds totally synced up and in the right places, and they don't have a certain and specific call to action once that launch happens. So this is something that you want to make sure that you're doing properly prior to this launch. You have all of the listener funnels put together. You have all of the podcast trailers all synced together. You're using tools like Opus AI or Swell AI or Descript to make really sticky trailers for the show and understanding really what those people want and what is really sticking to them, the transformations you're making even in the trailers. So that when you launch, people are so excited that they will share the episodes, that they will get all the way through the episodes, and that you have the most, the best chance at getting that first 100 downloads and 200 downloads when you launch. And the reason the launch phase is very specific and put in this spot not first. A lot of times people put this in the wrong spot, right? They launch with the idea and want to get the feedback later. We've seen that fail time and time again. That actually happened with one of our first podcasts when I tried to do you did that. I just launched them episode, actually. I'm sorry, it was the quick and dirty. We launched the episode, thought people would love it, flatlined. Nobody listened to it. We did it different with the Healthy Profits podcast and learned a ton from creating the episodes, having people give us some feedback, and then starting the launch phase in a much more succinct and systemized way so that we had some good feelers and some good retention when we launched a podcast. So once you have Those three things down, those are some of the tried and true pieces that we've seen work so much better. And as you can tell, this is a lot of planning. That is, if you don't do this right, this is where people get stuck. They think it's just recording an episode, uploading that episode, and getting the RSS feed. But when in reality, the biggest thing we can do is really map out the first three stages, the conception phase, the creation phase, and launch phase, in that order, so that you know who you're serving, you know why you're creating the content and what transformation you're taking people through, and you know the success of what's going to happen when people listen to that show. The listener funnel is all set up, the Ascension models are all set up, and you've got the highest opportunity to convert those listeners into a paying client down the road. So those are the three things that I would do right now if I were to start all over again. And the cherry on top of that is I would start using some of the new technology out there, some of the ChatGPT prompts that you can use, and some of the really cool bots that we've made. And one of the bots that I made was the Evolve podcasting marketing guru, which I'll also drop the link for in this episode, so that you can really zip through the conception phase, the creation phase, and the launch phase and really dial in your show so that you have the best possibility of getting to that first 10,000 people. And after you get through those, that is when you're going to look at monetization and growth and growth strategies and exponential growth. But until you get that audience so narrowed down and so specific and a feedback loop going with them, it will be very hard for you to grow that audience because you don't know who you're talking to and how to really serve them. So I wanted to share that with you guys today because I know that has been a huge sticking point for people when they want to start all over. What would I do if I started all over again? And again, I've seen this happen time and time again, that people do not narrow down their audience, get the test group and then create the shows and get the feedback going and then launching and treating that like a proper launch. Those three things in those three phases, if you look at conception, creation, and launch, those three things are what I would do. Totally different. If I were to launch a podcast this time without knowing anything, that would be the formula I would take to launch a podcast to get to the first 10,000 using those three steps in the launch. So hopefully that helps you guys. I also want to make sure that you guys check out the notes. Get yourself this Evolved podcasting launch template which will give you all the steps by step so you know exactly how to get through launching, creating or conceptualizing Creating and launching, as well as the bot that we have. The Marketing Guru Bot, the Evolve Podcasting Marketing Guru Bot. Get those two resources. It's so easy. It's in the show Notes links. You can get them today. As soon as you're done. Share this episode with a friend if you love this. I know that we have had so much success creating the podcast from this space, thinking like kids and starting all over. Happy Podcasting to you guys. Hope this helps you. Let us know if you have anything else that you'd like to see on the show and happy podcasting. Talk to you soon, guys. Now that was a great episode. Thanks for joining us and tuning in to the Healthy Profits Podcast.

Sami and I are here to help you turn your health podcast into a treasure trove of opportunity for your listeners and your business. So join us twice a week as we unleash our favorite tips and strategies that have helped our clients at Evolve Podcasting turn their show into a thriving part of their business.

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Bye.