How the Right Energy and Authentic Control of the Podcast Listener Tone Makes More Impact - On-Air Podcast Coaching with Susan Norton of Connecting 2 Spirit (Podfaded)

Wish you were one of those influencers with raving fans who binge on your every word, consume all your content, buy everything you have to sell, and demand even more. Then stay tuned while Authority magazine columnist and buzzfeed contributor Tracy Hazzard shares strategies, tips and tactics from top videocasters, podcasters, authors and social influencers on creating that bingeable factor. Now let's join Tracy as she explores how to rise above all noise with the Binge factor.

Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Binge Factor. I'm Traci Hazzard and we're going to do a special on air coaching session today so you get a sneak peek at what it's like to be in one of our strategic coaching sessions. As you know, I'm the founder of Potaties and we do a lot of these coaching sessions with our clients and we're always looking at the strategy. So that's really what I want to bring you today. Now, today's guest, our guest coaching client is Susan Norton. And Susan has the podcast Connecting to Spirit. And it's the number two, Connecting to Spirit. And it's interesting to talk about the strategy behind a show that is very personal, that is very message driven, that is very story driven. This is a very different kind of show. And that's why I'm so glad that Susan was so willing to be here. So, so that you could get a sneak peek into what it's like to think about producing a show like this. The other reason that I'm so glad that it's Susan coming on is because she's right at the start of her journey. So right now, at the time that we're recording this, she only has about six episodes that are live. And so it's really early on for her to affect change. So probably by the time this airs, which is going to be over a month from now, she probably will have at least twice that. And you'll be able to hear some of the things that she's enacted from, from our conversation and you'll be able to hear what the results of those are and how they feel and you can see the difference between before and after. So that's why I love these episodes because you're going to get to experience what that can be for your show. And part of the reason that we're showing these is not to sell potty ties here. I mean, we would love that if you guys decided to join us there. But the benefit of strategic thinking in starting your show is super valuable and we really want to get that across here. And that's why we're giving you a sneak peek into how this can work. So let me tell you a little bit about Susan Norton before we get started and hear her on air coaching session. Susan Norton is the founder of Shamanic Services by Susan and the creator of A Plan for Miracles. She is certified in shamanic healing work through the Four Wind Society and Dr. Alberto Villoto and has studied this medicine path in Peru, Canada and across the United States. Susan holds monthly live virtual fire ceremonies bringing people from all over the country together for healing and connection. Her specialty is connecting people to spirit. And you can find more about her work@connectingtospirit.com Remember, that's the number two, which is one of the issues that we're going to talk about in our show today. So Susan has a really interesting show and as I said, she only has about six episodes coming out so far. They are really story driven. She'll tell a story, she'll take you on a journey. So this is one show that you're going to want to check out. So check out Connecting to Spirit. And let's hear from Susan Norton.

Susan, welcome to the Binge Factor and I'm excited to talk to you about the strategy of your show. Your show is really different than a lot of other shows out there. Connecting to Spirit. And you mentioned to me before that you have impact that you want to deliver to the world. What's that impact?

Well, I think there's a lot of gifts that we can receive from spirit and from the realm of just angels and help. And one of my, the impact that I like to achieve is to let people access this realm through the journeys and guided meditations where they have an interactive journey where they have takeaway benefits, health benefits, just feeling peace and overcoming fear. So just to bring that hope and joy. And it's they're relaxing, but just also there's gifts that are just given so freely.

So you want to have your listeners to have an experience while they're listening. Totally. Yes.

An experience, a takeaway experience.

I like that. That's really interesting because listening to the few shows that you have out at the point that we're recording this and by the time this airs there'll be a lot more. So no worries for all of you listeners out there who want to check it out, there's plenty, but it's relatively new. And that's the one thing that I didn't get Susan from. It is there's no understanding of either in your introduction or, or an introduction Episode. So, technically, we're going to talk about one technical detail that I want you to accomplish, because I think it's going to set up that experience that you're looking for here properly. So when we open a book or when we pick up a book, we read the back jacket, right? We want to know kind of what we're going to get before we open it up. Podcasts are the same way. I always think of it like bookends, like the side, the COVID and the back end of the book. So, yes, you have your cover art and you have all of those things that intrigued me enough, like a little bit of description. But it really is that very first teaser episode or intro episode that helps a listener decide, is this an experience worth taking my time? Right. Am I going to dive in? So I love the idea for you of setting up just what you just explained to me here that you want to have, and you're creating experience. What is that experience like? Explain that to your users as your purpose for doing this podcast and what they can expect from it. So when we give a speech, we tell people, here's what you're gonna hear. Then they tell them, and then we tell them what they heard, right? So we gotta do that first part. We gotta tell them what they're gonna hear, and so that they can feel really comfortable experiencing that. And, of course, do it in your way, right? Do it in the way that you would introduce an event. Do it in the way that you normally would, Susan, Because I know that you have tremendous experience in this world, but it doesn't need to be long, five minutes. And we want to make it what we call a 0.0episode. Even though it will never be numbered that way, it'll always be a number one. And for those of you listening out there, you also want to tag it as your trailer. That's what they call it. And I did air quotes for those of you listening. Trailer.

Okay, awesome.

A trailer is an itunes or Apple thing. And as long as you select that, it appears in the Apple podcast app and a couple of other apps use something similar to bring it up to the top as a choice. So when we look at your podcast, we could also listen to that trailer as well. So it just puts it right up at the front. So that way, when you get hundreds of episodes, someday, it's still up there and able to be found, and you can always replace it and change it and update it, like about every hundred episodes or so. I create a new one. Because your show changes, you change anyway. That's a simple thing, but I think it's going to help set up what we're experiencing when we listen to your show.

That makes sense. That's a great idea.

So let's talk a little bit about your reason for starting the podcast. From a business perspective, I hear that this is the impact that you want to achieve and this is what you want to bring to the world. But what's the vehicle and what's the mechanism for being able to keep doing that?

Well, I think when people discover this kind of connection and they hear my voice or they see the video of it, that they can sense that I have an access to something that can be super helpful to them. So if it felt right to them, they could contact me and set up a time for a spirit breakthrough session or see if they're interested in shamanic training, some kind of training to Also a lot of people would love to have this kind of access and so they can have a session, they can contact me. I'm hoping they will reach out or come to the website and. And see if there might be something there for them to go to the next level, even if it's just joining my email list. Because we have monthly community fire ceremonies that are virtual and people gather by the fire and they're free and it's open to everyone and it's on zoom. So that's a great first step just to just come in. There's many levels to enter the spirit pool, like the shallow end, like just coming in or just listening to some of these, or jumping in the deep end, taking shaman training or getting one on one training to have this, that this is stuff that people can do, access these other realms.

So you're not really telling them that? No. We don't even know. In your outro. In your outro, you don't even have a mention of where to find you.

No, I know.

So that's a little bit of a miss. And you know what I sense is it's your voice on the intro and the outro. Yeah. And I think that that may be what would be the best way to change is maybe having your outro be somebody else's voice so that they can do that slightly salesy promo y thing that makes you somewhat uncomfortable.

Okay.

They can just let people know of if you enjoyed this, if you want more stories, if you want to get more of Susan, here's how to reach her. It's an invitation, it's not a sales pitch. But we don't know how to find you.

Okay. That makes Sense.

I know I need to take business.

Training to figure out fire ceremonies to let people know that I did other things. Like, it's silly that I have to be told that. I mean, I should know that by now.

No, you know what? It's not silly. You are not alone with that feeling. But the thing is, is that this is also a way of getting into people's minds. So you're opening up the possibility that I might want to reach out to you. I may not be ready at episode one to do that, but I might be ready at episode 20. And I've now heard it enough that I know exactly how to find you. It's not difficult at that moment in time. There's no friction in my ability to go from that thought in my brain to making it happen, because you've given me all the tools I need along the way. You're helping your listeners.

Yeah. Okay.

You're not selling to them.

Yeah. I think maybe if I just made the outro with the invitation, I think I could do that in my voice. I don't have a problem with it because these are all gifts. So I'm not scared of making an offer if it's helpful. Yeah.

And the reason I say that is just because sometimes having another voice elevates our authority in the marketplace. And so that's one of the reasons we have somebody else introduce us at an event. We have announcers at almost every single talk show. Right. Is it elevates this. Instead of you saying, you're great, someone else is saying, you're great. You're worth reaching out to. You're worth connecting to. So that's why we like the external voice. We like that. That voice of authority.

Nice.

And that can be a good thing. And now the decision about what voice, you definitely don't want it to miss. The tone you've got going on. You've got a nice, peaceful, zen tone with a really nice resonant sound that's going on behind it. So you need a voice that fits that.

Okay. And should they say, say their name when they do that? Like, don't bother. Just someone that's someone else.

No one. Yeah. It's very typical to have an announcer announce a podcast introduction, a podcast close. We have a voice on the binge factor that sounds a little bit like my husband, but it's not. It's actually his brother. So I chose someone whose voice I really enjoy and love. The way he has the energy that I wanted. That's how I picked it. So it should resonate with you, so that it's giving across the feeling that you're going for in your whole show. But it can set a nice tone.

And that's maybe the. Yeah, yeah.

And you don't have to change the episodes you've already done. You can just do it moving forward. There's no need to go fix things that aren't broke. So you're just making improvements. You're upgrading.

Right. I like that. Thank you.

Yeah. So, you know, this is an interesting story that I, Stephen Colbert, when he first started whatever his show is called, the one at the late night show, whatever it's called, I forget what it is. Anyway, when he started it the very first week, he had his own voice do his own introduction, and the backlash from the audience was crazy. Like the Twitter backlash. It was shocking. And his model of having come from Comedy Central, where you can be this egotistical in your face kind of thing, worked for him there. But you move it over into late night and it just didn't work at all for him. And very soon he quickly got this wonderful female host which nicely contrasts female introducer who nicely contrasts his silliness. And it works out great for him now. But he wouldn't have found that if he hadn't done this thing like trying to be different and discovered that that just didn't fit the model. And podcasting is a media type that is very typical use to this broadcaster world. So we do have to fit that somewhat. We can break the mold when we want to, but sometimes fitting it and making it our own in that process can actually work to our favorite. Okay, yeah, thank you.

That's helpful.

So good. So we want to have potentially people reach out. We want to have one on ones. There's a whole process in sort of inviting that in, but it's the experience of the show that you're expecting to make them want to come and work with you. And that's one of the things that I think we may need to work into your show, Susan. So this is a common thing. What we're doing right here on the show right now is an experience of that. So people don't understand what's the value of a podcast strategy session. I'm sharing that with them right this moment. Okay. So we're getting specific about your show, but I'm also giving generalisms that other people out there could go, oh, that applies to me. I don't have the same kind of intro outro. Or they can say, this doesn't apply to me. But I learned from that. Other thing, getting people to understand the whole experience of working with you might be really useful as well. And now it may not fit because some people have very, you know, what you do may be very private and people don't want to be exposed into that. But if there's a way for people to understand what the experience is like working with you in general, or what the experience could be like coming to one of your events or doing some of these journeys. So you mentioned early that you wanted to do some shamanic journeys where people shouldn't be in their car listening, they shouldn't be with family listening. Right. Tell us a little bit more about those.

Well, I found a way to go into a semi, into a very relaxed place, using a drum, counting backwards. It's like self hypnosis, or entering a very relaxed state and entering. And we arrive at paradise, the person's paradise. And that's what I learned at a healing place as a technique. And when you're in that paradise, that place of deep relaxation, you drop in a phrase that you want to bring in to every cell of your being, so it's super powerful. And then you come back up, you count back up to. You count down to one when you enter your paradise and you come back up and you end up with 10 and snap your fingers. So I started to do that, and then what happened was I would be on my way down to paradise because I do shamanic services, shamanic practices. I stop in the middle of the earth and I get like a healing from the earth angels, like on the way down. Because to enter this sacred paradise where everything is possible, I have to be in a really clean place. I can't be with my ego or, you know, just. It's a place of you, just super clean. You're entering paradise, you're going to leave all your kind of crap out. So on the way down, I get like a shamanic healing directly from the earth angels, earth keepers, earth helpers. And it's so comforting because we all have troubles. I have troubles. They'll hold me and they'll clear up my thoughts, and they can even remove blocks and cords. Things that I do in my shaman sessions, they can do directly.

So can people come along on the journey with you?

Totally, yes. They also experience that on the way down. They experience it and then they go down and we drop into paradise. And I describe mine, but theirs might be different, but in this realm, it's the realm of just where only good things exist, like animals, nature, loved ones. We're being held, we can be with in nature. And if we see a jaguar or we're never scared, because this is a paradise. Everything here is for our highest good.

So that's a wonderful idea to drop those in. When I had my second child, I did hypnobabies, and they had, like, you could learn the whole thing, and they had a bunch of tracks that you could go and you could do them, and you could do those anywhere. They were about learning. And then they'd hit the one, and it was marked, do not do this one while driving. You know, and so I think you could do the same thing, and you could have it be like every so many. Whatever a special number is for you. And I'm sure there is one right there. And so whatever a special number is for you.

Marissa pay. Dr. Marissa pay her numbers. 8, 88. 8, whatever. 88%, right. So whoever that might be, whatever that number might be for you, that's when you drop one in, right? You want them to be special. You want to highlight them. You also want to give a little warning on it. So you could prerecord a special warning that you do. So that is just prerecorded. It could be in that announcer's voice as well. That could be something. We're just telling them what they need to make sure that they're not doing during that time. And that could be a wonderful setup that you reuse so you don't have to rerecord that each time. So you could record that once, and you reuse it every time you do one of these types of episodes. And in this particular case, you want to mark them most of the time, when I say title episodes, I want you to give them titles. You want to be exciting and intriguing about it, and you don't want to have episode numbers and repetition of things. But in this particular case, because people might be searching them out knowing that you're going to be doing one, and once they experience one, they want to try another one in a week or, you know, whatever that is. You want to mark them special. So mark them right at the beginning. Shamanic journeys, or whatever you want to call them.

Okay.

And give them something consistent.

So is it okay to mark them? Like right now I have Journey to Paradise one, Journey to Paradise two.

That's right. That's okay. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. And absolutely mark it that way. And just make sure that you give it consistency throughout the rest of it. So every time you do one, you can call it that same thing. So that if I were to look for the Episodes. I know all of those are the ones that you're going to be guiding me.

Okay. Okay.

So the numbers are okay in that particular context. Yeah. Remember, they're not going to match your episode numbers that will show up in the player. So that's why you don't want to put the number first, because then you would have Number, number. Exactly.

That's silly. Okay.

And it confuses people's minds.

Right.

So if I say journey to paradise, 1, 2, 3, you're giving it at the end of a section, so that's okay. Okay.

So you had mentioned that I could make, like, a short podcast about what I do in general, like the mission and why they could listen, why it's helpful. Should I do a separate one for the journey one, or just kind of blend them together?

Yeah, I would include them together. That you're going to find this and you're going to find that. So the couple of different types of episodes that you're talking about and setting up where your story. You have real stories. I mean, the one about the friend of yours who passed away and you had the dream of her that night. Right. That resonated with me. I had a dream of this savior dog, and in the end, it was telling me that it was okay for me to get a dog. I know it sounds like, so funny, but it was one of those experiences where I know the reason I have my dog today is because of that.

That's wonderful.

And that. Yeah. Wendy Lipton, Dibner's wonderful dog Parfait, came to me and just said, no, this is what you want. You want love. So it resonates with people. Right. So when you have that and that, they know that these are real stories, they're not constructed stories. So you want to definitely mention that in the beginning, you're not relaying mythic stories, you're relaying real life stories.

Okay.

And the more you convey that, the more people are understanding what they're experiencing. Otherwise, we listen to it and we're not sure. Yeah, you're giving us a context for that. Okay. And then anytime you have something that needs specific context. So like the reminder in the Journey to Paradise series, where reminding them, you shouldn't be driving, you should be sitting in a quiet place, like, whatever they need to be preparing, give them that reminder right there. Because they may not have realized it may have been a long time since they heard that intro episode. So giving anything that's critically important to the episode, give it at the time that you start the episode.

Yeah, I was assuming they would read it, but that's silly because who reads?

Podcast listeners don't read. They're different.

My other question is, I don't know if this is the place to ask it, but with these journeys, you're in, like, a really sweet place when you come back and you're super relaxed. Maybe you saw an angel, you got a message, or you feel amazing. And I should tell this podcast about how I know to bring them out to the world. It's like, don't just keep this for yourself. Bring this out to the world. Like, that would be so interesting how that happened. But at the end of that, super. Usually after a journey like that, I don't come to like, well, now sign up for my website and maybe at that time just leave the outro out and just leave it off. As a courtesy, you can have two.

Different types of outros. That's absolutely perfectly reasonable. I have three different kinds for three different types of episodes because I need to invite them to do something different. Sometimes you can also do it in a promo style so, like, you can always drop in a special message if you need to, so that the, you know, a reminder of you've just been on this journey. You should drink a lot of water. You know, like, whatever you might have as a. You should maybe also have that. So it should be a part of that special closing message. And in that particular case, maybe you don't want someone else's voice ending it, you want your voice ending it, because that's it. And that's okay to have these be separate from the others in terms of the model they follow. Our episodes do not have to follow the same model every single time. In fact, variety is good, right? Yeah. I think I like to look at it like a record album. Remember our old days of having back jacket. And we would study it and we'd like. And then you'd listen to them in the order. We don't do that anymore. Right. We skip around. But if we listen to them in the order that they were intended, they should take us on a journey.

Right?

Right. So if you get a binge listener, and that's our ideal. Right. Someone who finds us and said, this is what I've been looking. This connecting to spirit is perfect for me. They're going to start at the beginning and they're going to flow through it with the intention of how you created it. So feel free to move things around in your catalog, air it, because you need it to publish on the most recent day. You got to, like, make it published. Today or your subscribers won't hear it. Right. And then move the dates around for new people who come in and find your podcast in months later.

Okay. I didn't know I could do that.

You can absolutely renumber your episode. You have to redate them.

Okay.

But you can do. But like I said, give it a. I like to give it a week. So if I air an episode, I don't change the date for at least a week.

Okay.

Now, there is something that it should happen that subscribers will get them anyway. So technically, it should pop up because they didn't listen to it yet. Right. So it's set for any show you have never downloaded, you've never listened to. But just in case some players don't work quite like that, and there are some out there that have different models for how they do it. They only anything within the last 24, 48 hours, that kind of thing. So we want to make sure that we don't mess with the date at the beginning. So that's why I say I put it out there with today's date or whatever date I want it to air, and then one week later, I shuffle my episodes if I need to. Which is another reason why we don't number them.

Because then they might be out of order. Right.

Okay.

But, yes, you can absolutely do that, and it's a great idea. You're orchestrating an experience, and as you get more into it, you may realize that certain things need a foundational experience at the beginning. You need to bring them in earlier. For people.

Okay. Just really think about their experience. That's right. And what they might need to understand it, to prepare, to pull over, to hold till they get home.

Well, and this is the thing. It's like, do you listen to your own episodes?

I do sometimes. Not routinely. I mean, I have. I listen to them.

Yeah. Most people don't. I'm not singling you out. Most people don't. Most people don't go through and check out even how their episodes look in the feed of a player. They're not auditing their own show from that, from the user experience level. So I'm kind of controlling about my shows. Right. I want it to look a certain way, I want it to feel a certain way, I want it to flow a certain way. And for you, I think that actually might be really important.

I think so.

Because you're creating a journey, and that journey is going to be how we experience from one to the next to the next. Because people may go from one to the next. Your episodes are not super long, so it's very likely I could do three or four in a sitting.

Okay.

Yeah. And then the other thing that you may want to mention, people do tend to speed episodes up, so make sure that you actually make a mention not to do that on your journey. On Journey to Paradise episodes, make sure it's set at one time speed. You just may. I mean, people, people try to cram a lot of knowledge in, so I'm probably the worst offender because I have to listen to so many podcasts to try to get experience. So I will do that on occasion, I will skip around. But in your, specifically in your Journey to Paradise episodes, you don't want them to do that because they'll lose the experience.

Okay.

So that might be the only other reminder that's unique to podcast listeners that you may not realize because you're not an ardent listener.

Okay. Right, right.

Yeah. So how are things going for you from a business perspective with, you know, you're not having a lot of events right now and do you think this could lead to more online events for you?

Yes, I really think it could because it's going out to the world, it's available at their schedule when they want, and I think it's really going to increase my visibility because the work that I do with these guys is amazing. So I think with this visibility, it's really going to help people find me more because people are finding me. I've been out, I've been doing this work for probably close to 13 years and it's getting more powerful and it's getting faster and changes are happening even faster in a more streamlined, streamlined way. And now it's happening on Zoom. I'm doing remote sessions like this is things that were not even heard of maybe 10 years ago. So I think it's really going to be helpful for them, for the business. And I've just had to remember to tie it into my business because it's such a gift in itself. But I, I do. This is my life's work. This is what I'm meant to do.

On that side of things is it doesn't come across. Maybe it's just because simply we're not being sent to your website to go check you out, you know what I mean? Or. And to find out more about you. But it would be helpful to understand, and this is part of what I find a lot in the spiritual mindset style podcasts in anything that has sort of a spiritual connection to it, that sometimes they fail to recognize the stages of the listeners so in other words, I may know about it, but I don't know much about what it means to be a shaman. What I may not be well read in that, I may not be well experienced in that. And if my first experience of it is your podcast, a little context might go a long way. And so thinking about that is that it doesn't have to be everywhere. It's good to put that into the introduction, of course, but you could do an occasional episode where you're really talking about understanding this world and realm and what it means and what impact it can have on me personally, on the society at large, community, whatever that might mean. As to being. As to getting to know and learn more. And then from that perspective, it's always great for you to suggest resources. So what books do you recommend that I read? And so you could have sort of, I'm going to call it more of a mechanical style episode where you're really talking about what shamanism, what your spiritual journeys mean in the context of what I'm searching for personally, that drew me to your show because it may be something completely different. I randomly read about you, someone recommended it, someone I listened to one of the shows. I thought, this is beautiful. And then I start listening, but I really don't have a context for it at all.

Okay.

You might be my first touch point in a world of getting more in touch with my spirit. Right. So take that with a gravitas that requires you to be that true guide that you are. And remember that there are people who are beginners. So what else? Susan, how is podcasting feeling to you?

I'm a little bit like, stepping in, and I'm not sure all the. How all the pieces work to having it come out in a big way. So I'm working with potted ties because I've just. I don't know if you're aware of it, but I. So. And even there, I'm not sure how the pieces fit. So the technical bringing it out to the world. I feel like I know where the starting gate is, and I'm barely arriving at the starting gate. And that's okay.

That is okay. That's exactly where you are right now. And that's okay. The reality is, is that whether you're working with poditizers, you're working with any coach, or you're working with any producer, is that there are different stages of things. We don't want to overwhelm you at first and give you all the technical things that you could be doing. And because it gets you out of your head and out of your heart that you need to record. Because at the end of the day, it's your beautiful recordings. It is the message that you're bringing that is more important than the technical side of things. And so you hired us. Trust us. Let us tell you when. First off, ask the questions. When you're ready. When it occurs to you, ask them. That's the first thing. Right. If we don't know that you're even ready for the next thing, you. You might be ready way sooner than we think you are. Right.

Okay.

And we watch 500 plus shows. It's hard for us to know when everyone's at the right stage. So when you feel you're ready or you have questions, that's your time to jump on one of our group coaching calls. Send a message to your customer success manager, your client success manager. Send a message in and just let us know what kind of questions you have. We can do a little quick audit of your show, see where things are, and see what's going on for you. The same thing is that I don't want you to get caught up in your stats in the. I'm going to call them the vanity metric side of things. They take time. This is not one of those fast. I get a hit and I sell thousands of tickets. It doesn't work like that with podcasting. Podcasting is a nice, slow, steady, sustainable burn, and you're going to get there eventually. And we get to make tweaks along the way to help you do what you're going to do, achieve the outcomes you want to achieve. Right. And take what you can at the moment. Because if you try to do everything at once, you will succeed at none. So let's do the thing that you're brilliant at, which is telling wonderful stories in a great voice. You have a wonderful voice for podcasting.

Oh, wow.

Awesome. It comes across really well. You have great dramatic pauses and just the way that you tell that I feel I'm a part of the story. You're creating an experience right there. Not a lot of podcasters can do that. A lot are giving lectures. A lot are all about themselves. There's a lot of different models of shows out there, so we need to let people who are looking for you to find you. Our job is to take care of the technical things, make sure you show up. There's a couple little technical notes I made here that I'm probably not even going to tell you. I was just going to send them to the team, but I'll Mention them right now just so that other people here, you need a subtitle on your show. So you have connecting to with the number two spirit. The problem is, do I type it in that way when I type into itunes? Probably not. So we want to work connecting two spirit to into our subtitle because a subtitle is a secondary search process. So when Apple podcasts or any podcast player search engine searches, they search title or show title, subtitle, description and your name, and that's where they search. And then when for episodes, they're searching the same things. Title, subtitle. I don't actually don't even know if they're subtitles on episodes, but title and description or whatever you put into that short description field. So those are the only things that it's capable of searching on. So we want to make sure that we're searching for both spellings.

Right.

So what you want is a subtitle that should be something like real stories about connecting to spirit. Like that's like really like a bad. That's bad right there off the top of my head. But you want to have that connecting to spirit be at the end of the sentence. At the end of the phrase that you're going to use in the subtitle. Only because you just don't want it to be. Because it'll say. If you were to look at it on a player, it would say connecting to the number spirit, colon or dash and then your subtitle. And so you don't want it to say connecting to spirit right there. Again, it looks repetitive. Right. So we want to put it at the end of the phrase. That's the only criteria. So what are we going to say at the beginning is journeys and stories on the. You want to. Don't want to change it to connect to spare. You want to keep it connecting. But that. That's a simple technical thing that we should take care of because it'll make you more searchable.

Thank you. Connecting. Like build it into the first sentence after. So this is the subtitle.

It's its own field.

It's its own field. Just keep it kind of short. But in that subtitle, a couple like one sentence that ends in connecting to spirit to.

Exactly. Without any punctuation on it, though. You want it to treat it like a. Yeah. Like as if it was like title of a blog post subtitle below it. You wanted the same kind of feeling.

Okay, just kind of use that for. On all.

Well, no, you don't use it in all. You Only use it in the show setup. So we'll put it right into your show profile.

Okay.

Yeah. And then this is. We have it. There's a couple of podcasts. I just. In fact, today's podcast that aired while we were recording this was the first Giving Tuesday podcast, which is a My giving back to the podcast community and highlighting some podcasts that I couldn't interview that just started their show. So they're new, they're noteworthy, they needed to be mentioned, so that was my way of doing that. But when I went to review one of them and search for them, the name of their show was great. It was give. Perfect name for the. For the. For the theme of what I was trying to do. I couldn't get them to show up in the player by typing give because it was too short and too general. And so it wasn't until I typed in Give Philanthropy podcast that I was able to get it to show up. And so if your listeners have to work that hard to find you when they hear about your show from somewhere else, that maybe said it slightly wrong, spelled it slightly wrong. Right. You got to do what you can do to make it happen. Now, luckily, if they find your name, it will be easy, because your name is not that hard to spell. It's easy to find. There aren't a lot of Susan Norton's I've discovered, so you're good there. But this is why we want to have a subtitle. We want to use it because it gives us a robuster way for people spelling things wrong to find us or. I love it.

That's super helpful.

Yeah. Super simple, but technical. Right. Like, you didn't really need this. Our team will take care of it. So. But I'm mentioning it to you here just so that you have an idea, because they'll reach out to you and go, susan, what do you want your subtitle to be? Now you know what it's going to be.

Now I know what they're talking about.

Now you know what they're talking about. Exactly.

Really, really great.

Yeah. So these are the things that. This is really good for all the listeners out there who are watching you do this and who are talking with this is that when we are at a certain stage, we have different questions than we do. You know, when we have 100 episodes on our belt or 200 under our belt, we're in a different place of shifting our show, maybe trying to accomplish different goals. But right at the start, we're just really trying, which is exactly where you are exactly where your energy needs to be, which is creating the experience. So make sure that all these little things help your experience and facilitate it. Because we do have to create a facilitation for experience for different types of listeners at different types of stages who are just finding our show. And so be always thinking of that mindset of, what if someone never heard of me before and they just found my show and they listen here? Do they know what I'm talking about? Can they put this in context? So always giving a little bit of context to everything, whether it's within the episode or within the series of episodes, that's important for us to do. Not being repetitive and ignoring the fact that you've got people who are already loyal, though. And this is where I get a lot of people and their intros are two minutes long. And we're like, cut that thing down for the people who've been listening for a long time. Right? Great for new people, but not good for the recurring listeners, for the binge listeners. So we want to balance the two things. Little slight mentions here and there, nudge them along the journey, remind them where they can find. If they're looking for more information and new to this, they can find it here. That's simply it.

I like it. I don't like to be giving too much directions or like, go here. I like to be less and just so I think what's a good thing to do might be to just tell the story, do the podcast, the ones that are coming up that I feel like now it's time to tell that story and maybe create that and then go back later. And then if I need to adjust the intro or make a new intro, like, I can actually not worry about it at the time of that. Just blend it together later. Like, I can actually be thoughtful about it.

Right? And remember that because you have, you're using our productized system, you can put them in, like, what we call promos or ads. You can drop a section of audio in without worrying about it. So you have the ability of being able to like, after edit. So post edit without editing, without really having to redo the show.

Like, drop in the two. Like, here's a special intro for this one. Here's the actual raw footage.

Yes, exactly. Or just even just, you know, like, you can use that special message that you create about how to experience the journey to paradise. You could drop that in like a promo on just those episodes. So you never have to even bother to edit it yourself because you're doing your own audio, right? So all you do is you say, you mark the spot and you say, drop the Journey promo or the Journey introduction, drop it here and that's it. So you can utilize the system to help you create these extra add ons so that your experience of recording stays the same.

Okay, that makes sense.

Yeah. Let the mechanics work for you, let the technical system side work for you and you get to be in the experience. But what I want to leave you with, Susan, is that your audience are real people, right? These are real stories. You're talking to real people. And you know that. And think of the person who's brand new, just you're just meeting, and the person you've known for a decade and making sure that you're talking to both of them throughout your story, throughout your episode, throughout the message that you want to convey, that you're always considering both of their experiences. And if you can do that, then you're going to create a brilliant meld of that. So that's going to be your goal for the next recording. See how you do with that. Cool. Thank you.

This is so helpful because I am new, so this is the perfect time for me to be getting this information from you and it is really helpful. Thank you so much.

You are welcome, Susan. And thank you for coming on and letting other people experience your coaching as well.

Yeah.

Awesome.

I hope you enjoyed that sneak peek into what strategic thinking can do for your podcast. Thinking about how you really can affect that listener experience and on that levels of listener experience based on who you're trying to reach, what level that they're at when you're trying to reach them. And remember, you can do it differently than Susan. Right. Each strategy is unique to you and your show and your outcomes and your goals. But listening to that thought process of how you look at and how you listen to your own show and think about what the effect of. We now apply your own Personas, your own listener Personas, that you're thinking about your own outcomes and goals of what you'd like them to take action on and achieve, and thinking about melding those two things together. This is a path for creating a great podcast strategy for your show. So again, I really hope you enjoyed getting a sneak peek into the on air coaching model and the strategic podcast coaching. And I really hope that you'll reach out to me and let me know if you'd like to be one of our on air coaching guests. It's a great way for you to be exposed in terms of your show, but it's also a great way for you to take some steps to improving your show and making that listener experience and the outcome you receive from your show moving it to that next level. So reach out on thebingefactor.com and apply to be a guest. Looking forward to talking with you next time and bringing you more great podcast success stories, more great podcast strategies, and more great new podcasts as we feature our Giving Tuesday podcast as well. So thanks for joining me. I'm Tracy Hazzard on the Binge Factor.

You've been listening to the Binge Factor Podcast. For more information on podcasting and video casting success tips and tactics, please go to thebingefactor.com and be sure to listen to our other show for podcasters called Feed you'd brand. If you'd like to be interviewed on this show as well as featured in Tracy's column, please go to thebingefactor.com guest and apply.