A Pivot, A Reality Check, and Why I'm Here (Foundational Episode 05)

It's easy to start your podcasting journey and feel far away from the top 1%.

And if you feel like you can get there easily, you might find the journey harder

thought.

But the key is not to be stuck in the quagmire of the present.

Build your grand vision of where podcasting can take you.

This is the fifth and final foundational episode of this podcast as an introduction

Matthew Bliss, host of Rethinking Podcasting, through sharing with you my

thinking has changed on my podcasting journey so far. In this episode, you will

into why this podcast came about, a few choice opinions about the direction of the

industry, and a reality check that it's not about what the rest of the world is doing.

It's about what you do. And once again, you'll hear Coffee with a Podcaster

where this show began and has transformed into Rethinking Podcasting.

I'm now creating what I had always intended, helping podcasters think and

about podcasting, but there's still a few other projects waiting in the wings.

The real realization came about partly because of a business direction kind of

I've got an education background, trained teacher. I know I can help people solve

do that in podcasting, but there's no podcasting school. I can't sign up to be a

rock up to podcast school and learn how to do podcasts well. So you have to, if you're

to create content for a business, you have to think the delivery method, the way that

and get it to people and getting that authority in place to make sure that you're

this material, that they need it. Refer to problem number one, people don't know about

areas that they don't know about. In the context of Coffee with a Podcaster,

it was originally designed as a way for me to pick big podcast thoughts out of my head,

put them in an audio format and have people do whatever they want with it. So I could

plus subjects for episodes that I'd planned. That was literally me having a

putting it on the thing, loosely planning an episode and then leaving it. And I'll

I'll record it another time. The thing is, when you think about what people need and

you start to wonder where the audience is and knowing that people only understand

as far as they understand them, you want to broaden that audience so you can catch as

many people as do understand and then get them in there. The other aspect of that is

pitching to someone who is experienced or has done it because that limits your scope.

expand it, which means you expand to beginners. Now, if I'm doing solo content

of Stephen Bartlett as Diary of a CEO podcast host from brilliantly marketed

it's changed to 90 marketing and clickbait to get people through the door and then

that the stephen bartlett avatar is what they are attaching themselves to but then

stephen bartlett is just like an empty mannequin who starts every conversation with

right now, what should I know about you to get started on my journey learning more

And then, you know, those podcasts are three and a half hours long and you realize

the lowest common denominator. He's like, I'm doing the broad strokes to bring as many

into the room as possible by presuming that every person listening knows absolutely

nothing about the subject, knows nothing about me or them. So, you know, the slowest

the herd. Now, it seems like a very feasible methodology until you get a little

or Steven starts bragging about how he has 72 person podcast editing teams and his

guys spend three days creating a trailer that he drip feeds oxygen into the room

that guest energy was lower with a higher carbon dioxide ratio in the room. And then

a course or talks about a course about how the 1% is the most important thing for

All of this together. If I'm telling you that, and you're at the beginning of your

that's not the question you want answered. And you're also not going to listen to me

that and go, Hey, this guy knows what he's

talking about. I'm going to hire him because most beginner podcasters don't think

the things they don't want to do because they have to try it first. So that means the

argues with itself. And I'm like, I should do that diary of CEO one, one day. But you

someone asked me about compression the other day. I might do a three episode series

it can be understood across every possible plugin, across every possible digital audio

every possible iteration that's possible. And that gets boring. So moving the podcast

not only as a reflection of what I know I do well, being in the past, a mediator,

someone who redirects conversation, builds, emerges, socratic questioning, all that.

But also it allows me to bring in people that I've gotten close to or collaborated

that I know the emergent discussion is going to be interesting. And I don't have to

conversation to the audience I want. And the audience I want are the people who are

bought into podcasts and that aren't here for the questions like, my door stopped

Sorry, my DAW. Like, why is that? Or why does my voice sound bad?

How do I make it better? These are not the questions. I mean, I'm here for these

There are ways that you can approach me to get those questions, but the podcast isn't a

for those questions. The podcast is for a discussion like I had yesterday, which will

be coming out probably in a few months, with someone who talks about the creative

and how authentic, creative approaches to art, podcasting being included, is ignored

optimization, for business, for money, for, I think I termed it the podcast prison

off microphone to him. That was a huge hour and a half long rambling discussion,

but it's interesting. And there are threads there that people can tug on that will make

them think differently about how they have a podcast right now. And these people are

people I'm bringing on to talk about the lowest level of podcasting from an entirely

perspective. I'm employing my interviewing athleticism to the highest degree to

prepare, and create those emergent opportunities for thoughts they didn't think

and the epiphanies that the listeners won't realize that they'll get.

There's a problem in podcasting with the way people approach it.

And it's that any person, any one person understands podcasting to be the sum of any

or it's highly produced journalistic style audio or video as well content. But then

stories. You've also got interviews about self-development with people who write books

and do movies and stuff. There's a lot of different ways to skin that cat, but it's

a bit of a fog of war situation. You can only see so far in front of you, you have to

to explore isn't there because your awareness always appears to be the

exploration.

Put simply, if you spend the time with your content to create a podcast for it in a way

that makes sense for that content, it's going to do a much better job than starting

by saying, I'm going to do a learning podcast and every episode will

be a learning subject from my new book, which you can buy, check the show notes

Instead, looking at the way that you put the content together, maybe it's not even

material or parallel material. It might just be supplementary. Maybe you Brené Brown

audio book for the book that you're selling. And the audio book has extra

sits down and goes, hang on, let's have a chat about that because we need something

a little bit extra there that I need to give you context for.

Like there's, yeah, there are so many different ways to do it.

And I mean, learning content is one way.

I think learning and entertainment is another one, but where I see it going is

growth, more branded, more corporate, more business-oriented podcasts with bigger

more ad dollars flowing through them and hopefully a larger upper class of podcast.

When I say that, you don't just want to think of Dire Over CEO and Joe Rogan and

like millions and millions of downloads and subscribers and then 10,000. It's going to

spread as people get better at making podcasts, as the available content and how

breaking off into micro groups of podcasts with 10,000 listeners and people being happy

instead of striving to be a Joe Rogan. And advertisers will realize that, which means

more money will start flowing down to, I guess, in the context of socioeconomy,

creators, and then podcasting becomes more stable. More people get attracted to it or

motivated and don't have to be told things like, if you do 21 episodes, you're in the

the population, which means you're the best. You're the best. Who cares what

is doing? It's about what you're doing for your audience. I hope you enjoyed that

my background, my career, and how podcasting has changed my life. If you'd

or head to rethinkingpodcasting.com. You'll also find the ways that you can support the

including affiliate links to any products I use in my daily podcast production. If

podcast revelation to share or would like to respond to anything I've mentioned on the

send an email to business at mbpod.com or head to speakpipe.com forward slash RTP and

and I look forward to seeing you in the next one.

You might be wondering what compelled me to create this series of introductory episodes.

The truth is, I couldn't do it on my own. Activate Your Podcast is a service I offer

with Peter Daly-Dixon and Rob Drummond, where we help you launch your podcast with a

set of five introductory episodes built from a 90-minute conversation with a

These five activation episodes will

help you get started on your podcast, give you a foundation to build your marketing

and the provided transcripts will give you a strong base to kickstart your introductory

email automation sequences. We'll even host and distribute the podcast for you.

Not only that, but as the head of podcast engineering, I'll be editing your episodes

together with the highest production value on offer. And if you love our process,

you can choose to continue with the service ongoing for your podcast.

It's basically done-for-you marketing with everything included.

All you need to do is have a conversation.

If you're interested, head to activateyourpodcast.com to schedule an

and make sure to mention Rethinking Podcasting when you get there.