In this episode I interviewed Kevin Chemidlin, a podcast growth coach, about strategies to grow and monetize a podcast. We discussed the importance of audience growth, the misconceptions about podcast charts, and the effectiveness of lead magnets in driving listener action. Kevin emphasizes the significance of building a strong email list and offering valuable products or services to your audience.
KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
- Focus on Audience Growth, Not Just Downloads: Instead of solely focusing on download numbers, aim to build a loyal and engaged audience. Understand that the goal is to increase total audience reach over time.
- Monetization is About Listener Value, Not Ads: Reframe the question from “How do I monetize my podcast?” to “What do my listeners want to buy?” Monetization comes from offering value to your audience, whether it’s a direct product, a sponsored product, or building a business around the podcast.
- Leverage Multiple Platforms: A successful podcast-driven business requires a multi-faceted approach. Combine your podcast with short-form content (social media), email marketing, and a compelling offer to maximize your reach and revenue.
If you enjoyed this episode then please feel free to go and share it on your social media or head over to Apple podcasts or Spotify and give me a review, I would be so very grateful.
LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Connect with Kevin Chemidlin on Instagram, Website, Email
Connect with Teresa on Website, The Club, Sign up to Teresa’s email list, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter
Transcript
Teresa: Having a podcast for your business is becoming hugely popular with more and more business owners choosing to start and learn how to grow a podcast. But having a weekly podcast, as I well know, is hard work. Is it worth all the effort? that you put in and how do we make it work for our businesses to ensure that it is worth all the effort you put in.
In today’s episode, I interview the amazing Kevin from Grow the Show and he shares with us how to build and grow your podcast using his podcast ladder. He also talks about monetization and what that looks like for your podcast. He shares with us the four things that you need to do to make money from your podcast.
Including how you can sell your own stuff, not just through sponsorship. If you have a podcast, if you’re thinking about having a podcast, if you’re trying to grow a podcast, then this [00:01:00] episode is going to be absolute gold. I took so much from it and I know you will too.
Hello, and a really warm welcome to this week’s episode of the Your Dream Business Podcast. As always, I’m your host, Teresa [00:02:00] Heath -Wareing and I hope. You are having a great start to the week. If you’re listening at the start, obviously you might be listening this halfway through anyway.
Wherever you are in your week, I hope it’s going well. This week, I have got an awesome interview for you. Now, I love it when I do interviews where I can pick their brain for me, which sounds really selfish, but actually I find it makes a such a better episode because I’m really making them dive deep into Explaining something or helping me with something.
And today’s episode is a perfect example of that. I’m interviewing the very lovely and very talented Kevin from Grow the Show. He is talking all about podcasting. Now, obviously. Don’t know whether you know, but I have a podcast. This episode is 329, no 359, get it right. And I’ve had my podcast for a long time and everything is worth reviewing.
So I love it. I don’t want to change [00:03:00] it or not I don’t want to change it. I don’t want to not do my podcast, but it’s always good to get someone really smart on the podcast to have a conversation about what I can do better, how I can improve it, how I can, increase the money it makes and all that good stuff.
And this episode was so good. He not only is lovely to talk to him. We had a really, really awesome conversation, but he’s so knowledgeable about this. And it really was like, I just got to pick his brains for an entire 50 minutes or whatever it was. So if you have a podcast, if you are thinking about having a podcast, or if you just want to listen to a really awesome conversation.
This is going to be perfect. So without further ado, please welcome the very lovely, Kevin. Kevin, welcome to the podcast.
Kevin: Teresa, so excited to be here.
Teresa: I’m excited, very selfishly, because as I just said to you before we got going, one of my main objectives this year is to kind of re, not reinvigorate the podcast.
The podcast is doing fine and lovely and great, [00:04:00] but you can always do more. So the fact that we’re going to have you on to talk about. podcast and podcast growth and all that sort of good stuff. And also I know there’s so many other people who are starting podcasts. So I’m excited for today’s conversation, but I always thought the podcast same way.
Maybe this is something you should tell me not to do, but by getting you to introduce yourself and say who you are and how you got to do the thing that you do today.
Kevin: Yeah. So happy to do so. And then later I can tell you my thoughts on whether to do that or not, as always happens when I’m on a show, we do tons of meta speak, which is awesome.
So yes, my name is Kevin Chemidlin. I am a podcast growth coach. I’m the founder and host of grow the show, grow the show is the podcast to help you grow your podcast. My very brief background is I used to be a software developer at a big health insurance company in the U S. Not super passionate about writing software or health insurance, but I am super passionate about my hometown of Philadelphia.
So in 2018, I launched a podcast that tells the success stories of Philadelphians. And I was way better at that [00:05:00] than writing software. So really quickly and probably prematurely. Got quit, gave notice at the full time job, uh, to go all in on being a content creator, which back in 2018, we didn’t even say creator, like everybody around me in my life was just very confused.
A lot, and a lot of people hadn’t even heard of podcasts yet. So I said I was leaving, you know, my six figure job to be a podcaster. I got a lot of funny looks. At first it was a horrible move because while I had launched a show, what I didn’t know was that I didn’t know how to grow and monetize a show. I thought, oh, you just put out great episodes and the show grows and then you make money, right?
Absolutely not. So the first eight months was actually pretty brutal. Eventually, I ran out of savings. My back kind of went up against the wall a little bit. I came this close to going back to the corporate gig. But had made such a big stink to everybody in my life that, that I had, that I’m an entrepreneur now that I just couldn’t handle the thought of going back, you know, with my tail between my legs.
So I took a pause on publishing the show for six weeks, just full time, studied the top podcasts on the Apple [00:06:00] 100 charts, got in touch with a few, you know, successful podcasters to ask for their advice. What I learned is that growing a podcast and making money from a podcast is a skill and there are activities that you have to perform in order to make that happen.
Simply publishing an episode is not enough. So once I learned this, I learned what those skills are, how to do it. Brought the Philly show back. And within a year made about 120, 140, somewhere between there thousand dollars in just a year in monetization, the show had grown past a hundred thousand downloads.
And so for that year, I basically was a full time content creator. Although I really worked on the show part time, I did a lot of travel, that sort of thing. And once COVID hit, couldn’t travel anymore. I spent, uh, basically three months into quarantine. I had gotten on the phone with like 40 different podcasters who had all seen what I had done with the Philly show and wanted to know like, how did you do this?
How can I do this? And by the like 40th or 50th call, I was like, okay, there’s, there’s a pattern here. There’s a lot of people who are struggling with this. Let me see if I can create something to help them. And that was when grow the show was born. That was in 2020. [00:07:00] And we’re recording now in 2024. It’s almost at the four year anniversary and literally.
All I have done, my whole, like, I literally moved away from Philly, I live down in Miami now, away from friends and family. My sole focus the past four years has been growing and monetizing podcasts.
Teresa: Love it. So, you know, one thing that I actually really love about this story is I often see people come into.
So I started like, well, I’ve been in marketing a million years, but when I first started my business, I started in social media and I saw lots of people who taught social media because their own social media had been wildly successful. So therefore they went on to teach other people, but the difference between what you just said and them was that your social media, not your social media, your podcast wasn’t wildly successful. You had to go and learn how to make it successful. And that’s the difference. That’s the difference between someone who can teach this stuff on any subject matter, where you’ve had to [00:08:00] go and learn and work it out and make it work for you.
as opposed to if you just happen to put up a podcast and boom, it went wild overnight. And then everyone came to you and said, how did you do it? And then you try teaching that. Like, I love the fact that actually you weren’t your own success story necessarily straight away. And you went, okay, How am I going to make this successful? What am I going to do?
Kevin: Yeah. And that actually reminds me of like, there’s a lot of really big podcasters who like sell podcasting courses and like huge names. And these are people who either were celebrities at first, or, you know, they, they built a really, really massive, huge business and then launched a podcast and they have a personal brand and they, you know, they release a 997 course on how to podcast.
And a lot of times when I see that I’ll buy the course, see, you know, see if there’s anything new that I haven’t heard before. And a lot of times it’s very basic surface level advice where those people did not have the struggle of building an audience from scratch by themselves. These are folks that, you know, you take the course and they’re just like, be consistent.
It’s like, whoa, that’s not, that’s not [00:09:00] enough. There’s so much more that you need to understand. So it’s absolutely true. And like, while it was extremely painful at the time, I’m grateful to have had to just like grind it out and kind of figure it out from scratch.
Teresa: And the other thing you said, which. like being a fly on the wall in these kinds of things would be awesome.
Where going and looking at those top 100 podcasts, like what are they doing? How are they doing it? Why, you know, why are they in the top 100? Because that’s something that’s always like blown my mind in terms of how do some get there and some don’t and how like, so a few, not a few months ago, when was it?
So we’re recording this in May and it happened in December last year. My podcast hit number one in the UK charts for marketing. Right. And I was like, bear in mind, I’ve had my podcast for years, like 350 something episodes, right? Never hit number one before. And people were like, what did you do? What did you do? And I went, nothing, like literally nothing.
Right. And also looked at my stats, nothing, no difference. In [00:10:00] fact, my stats, and I think this is a lot to the iOS changes and various things, but they’ve been not declining, but they’re considerably like dropped down as to where they were. And it’s like, I have no actual idea how I got that. And therefore I’m not entirely sure how to do that again.
Kevin: And, you know, and do you have that thing? Yeah. Sorry. So, yeah, no, no. The, the, the biggest thing that most folks don’t know about the Apple podcasting charts is that they are not based on show size. They are based on new follower velocity. So the shows that chart are the ones that are getting the most new followers over the past 24 hours.
So there are shows that are smaller but are higher up on the charts because their show is growing faster. So a lot of times when a show will chart, it’s because there was maybe some sort of mentioned in, in media somewhere, or maybe you publish an episode with a guest that actually promoted and brought a bunch of new followers your way.
But, and then, you know, what’ll happen is your, your show will hit the charts. You’ll be like, Oh my gosh, what’s, what’s happening. What’s [00:11:00] happening. Yeah. Cause you look at the download numbers and they might not have moved that much. But again, the new follower, like the people who click follow in the Apple podcast app increased for that small period of time.
And so Apple shows you in the charts and I’ve seen it before where a show will chart and then they start falling and they’re like, what the heck, my downloads are going up. Why am I falling in the charts? And it’s just because the velocity, the amount of new people who are following the show has dropped.
So that’s the biggest misconception about the charts. And so if you want to engineer being on the charts, it’s getting the show in concentrated in front of as many Apple podcasts, new subscribers as you possibly can in a 24 hour period.
Teresa: Yeah. Yeah. And, and that would make sense as in why I wouldn’t have necessarily seen it in my downloads or why I wouldn’t have seen it in the something happened particularly crazy that maybe just so happened that I had said on that episode, hit subscribe or, and they hadn’t done that before or whatever.
So, you know, yeah, but it was like, I was genuinely over the moon obviously, but also like, you know, I’d really like to be able to replicate that [00:12:00] also, and I guess this is what we’re going to talk about. It’s not just that, don’t get me wrong, I will take all day long, right? But it feels a little bit vanity. Is it a vanity metric, do you think?
Kevin: It is simply a marketing byline that you can now say that your show is number one in the UK marketing charts. That’s it. That’s all you get.
And so what I recommend is when that happens, take a freaking screenshot because that screenshot is the price.
Teresa: Yes. Yeah. And that’s exactly what I did.
Like screenshotted it, videoed it. Like who else is below me? Like for that one time only, but, and, and it is now in my bio that I am now a number one podcaster. Like I’m taking it all day long.
Kevin: You did.
Teresa: But of course, as lovely as that is. I mean, in fact, I was about to answer why I think growth is important on a podcast, but I’m going to let you answer that.
Why is like having a podcast is lovely, but why is that growth bit so crucial?
Kevin: I mean, that’s, that’s a funny question because it depends on who you are. And like, [00:13:00] I ask you that, right? Why is growth important to you? Because everybody assumes Yes, like the goal is to grow, right? The goal is to get more listeners, get the download numbers to go up as much as possible.
But what I say back to that is I’m like, Okay, how does your life change? When you log into your hosting provider and you see a thousand more downloads than you saw last month, people kind of look at, they’re like, well, it really doesn’t, right? And so I’m like, okay, then why do you want more downloads? Why do you want your show to grow?
And usually it’s either I want more reach or I want to make more money, which usually more reach translates to more money anyway, because why on earth would you want more reach if not to make more money? So like the answer might surprise you, but I often say like down podcast downloads don’t really matter.
It’s like they are a means to some sort of end. And what’s also true about podcast downloads numbers is that they’re a little bit of a misnomer because pod podcasters don’t have a overall metric of the total number of people through the life of the show who have [00:14:00] ever checked it out, like social media platforms, your follower count.
Like if somebody follows you on social media, they find your stuff, they click follow, and a lot of those people eventually will stop seeing your content. But there’s still a follower for you. So you look at your social media and you see that number going up and up and up over the years, but it’s not like if you have a hundred K followers on Instagram and you make a post and that reaches two to three thousand people, that’s baseline, right?
Yeah. But you still have that 100 K on the top of your profile. The same thing is true on YouTube. I was just at a conference where a very popular YouTuber was giving a presentation. It was an excellent presentation. And something that I noticed was that she had 800, 000 subscribers on her YouTube channel, and she showed a screenshot of all of her videos over the past couple, you know, her last like eight videos, and they all got between two to 3, 000 views on the video.
Now, she was on that stage as a keynote, you know, with 2, 000 people on the edge of their seat listening to what she had to say because she had that big old 800k subscribers. But if you look [00:15:00] again at her videos, Each video was only getting two to three thousand views. Now, imagine if a YouTuber experienced what a podcaster experiences, which a YouTuber doesn’t get to see how many people subscribe to the channel.
They only see how many views their last video got. That YouTuber would be like, Yeah, my show is at about Two to 3000, right? Yeah, but that’s what podcasters experience where you look at your downloads from the last month and you’re like, yeah, my last episode got about 2000 downloads. But what you don’t see is that over the past five years, you have accumulated 20 to 50, 000 people who would actively say that they are a fan of your podcast and that they are a listener.
It’s just they didn’t listen to the last episode. So anyway, that was a bit of a bit of a tangent to say that, like, totally turn it on its head and be like, look, our goal is not downloads. Our goal is total audience reach.
Teresa: And that is a good and refreshing and interesting way to look at it because that isn’t a way that I have ever looked at it before.
Like you said, I just look at my downloads of that [00:16:00] episode or that the last month or, and, and, uh, you know, and then be like, well, why I need more downloads. I need more people to, to kind of pay attention to it. So, and okay. So I’m going to go in and answer the question of why would I want growth? And it’s exactly what you were saying.
Like There is a vanity ego thing, obviously, right? I would love nothing more to say I’d hit a million downloads. Right. And I’ve in total, I think, and I don’t know at time of this recording, last time I looked, it was over 500, 000. But I’ve been going a long time, like, so that kind of makes sense. There would be something awesome to say, I’ve had a million downloads or 2 million, 10 million downloads, that would be amazing.
For me, It is part of my funnel, I guess, in a loose sense of the word. If you can sit and listen to me and hear me in your ears, like you’re doing right now, then you will get to know me and hopefully get to like me and then hopefully go, she knows what she’s talking about and she’s pretty good at this stuff.
And then you’ll come and get on my email list [00:17:00] or you’ll come and follow me on social and then you’ll see my lead magnets and then you’ll see my offers. And then hopefully one day we get to hang out as customers. Like that’s obviously why I want the podcast growth. And, and, and for me, this is my free content.
This is my way of sharing with the world. So, you know, advice and information and that sort of thing. So, and one thing I’ve not done, which I want to touch on to this so much on asking my brain’s going, one thing I haven’t done is I haven’t monetized the podcast in the way that I think You talk about monetizing a podcast.
So when you talk about monetizing a podcast, are you talking direct money in from it, i. e. sponsorship or something like that? Or are you talking about building a business around the podcast?
Kevin: Both. All the time I get asked, how do I monetize my podcast? And my answer to that is always horrible question. Why?
Because at what moment is your podcast actually monetized? So, you know, you go from not [00:18:00] having monetization to having monetization. When does that switch flip? What would you answer?
Teresa: Yeah. Well, if I look at mine and how I make money from mine, it is a really flippin long and slow process. Like someone could listen to my podcast for years and then buy from me.
Or they might never buy from me.
Kevin: At what moment? At what moment does your podcast go from not being monetized to being monetized? What happens?
Teresa: When someone’s bought, I don’t, can I directly relate it to the podcast? That’s the thing. I don’t know. Can I?
Kevin: So this is the exact like where you’re at right now. It’s like, Whoa, I’m not sure.
That is why. How do I, how do I monetize my podcast is a terrible question. Right, and I don’t blame anybody for asking that question, right? Everybody asked that, I asked it too. Yeah. But, the idea is, if you can’t, if you don’t even know what it means, like at what moment your podcast has been monetized, how could, how on earth can you answer the question, how do I make it happen?
Yeah. So I’ll tell you what the answer is. What the answer I usually get is, when I get paid. Okay, I get that. But then the next question is, Who is paying you? So you went [00:19:00] to, well, when somebody buys my stuff, I guess. Okay. All right. So that’s your listeners paying you, right? But the monetization default that everybody thinks to thinks about is what?
Sponsorship. Yeah, right. So at that point, a sponsor is paying you. But the next question is who is paying your sponsor, right? Because sponsors not just paying you because they love the show. They’re not paying you to support the show. What they’re doing is they’re paying you in advance for your listeners to buy their stuff.
Yeah, that’s it. That’s the only reason. And if they don’t make more money from their listeners buying their stuff than they gave to you, they will stop being your sponsor because that is not a good investment. So a better question to ask, then, how do I monetize my podcast, is, what do my listeners want to buy?
Because, podcast monetization is simply the moment that your listeners buy something and you get a cut of the thing that they bought. You either sell them that thing directly, you build a business around the show and you [00:20:00] get the cut via profit, or you get partners and sponsors. If it’s a sponsorship, you get paid in, you get paid your cut in advance for hopefully your listeners to buy their stuff.
Or sometimes it’s more of an affiliate relationship where you get paid only after your listeners buy their stuff. But it all comes down to, literally every form of podcast monetization comes down to Your listeners buy something and you get a cut from it.
Teresa: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So with that in mind, I told you my brain is like going in a million different directions.
Kevin: It’s okay.
Teresa: With that in mind what would I do to achieve that objective? Like if I wanted to make money from the podcast, is there something specific or something that I need? Cause I think one of the things that comes up when you think about especially sponsorship and whether that be through an affiliate thing or, or direct sponsorship is you need the listens and you need the downloads and you need the people to take action.
So like, have I got to do something in particular for that? Is there something [00:21:00] like, Well, if I’m even looking at getting money from the podcast, what do I need to consider?
Kevin: Yeah, so. It begins with, like, so let’s say we’re hypothetically talking to a podcaster who, are we talking to someone who has no monetization yet? Like they don’t sell a product and they don’t have sponsors or is there a different scenario we want to talk through?
Teresa: Let’s talk through that they do make some money from people buying their stuff, but like it’s a slow go and maybe they want to make money through either more of that or sponsorship.
Kevin: Yeah. Okay, cool. So yes, that is a very, very common scenario. Even better. A lot of those folks who are entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, they have a podcast, they’re getting some clients and customers from the show, but they really want to make more money from the show. Nine times out of 10, I will tell that entrepreneur, let’s make more direct sales from the show.
You already have the infrastructure to sell somebody something. You already have a product or service that you’re selling them. So let’s either get more listeners to buy it or let’s charge more for the thing or let’s offer them a [00:22:00] different product or service. Because all in all. You get way more juice from the squeeze when listeners buy stuff from you directly.
Listeners trust you more, and you just get a bigger cut depending on, you know, what product or service that you’re selling. So, I almost always say, let’s optimize the podcast to get you more customers first, before we even think about or worry about sponsors. Because, you said it before, in order for sponsorship to make sense, You really need to have a significant volume.
You need to have a significant amount of listeners to your show. Now there’s certainly exceptions to that, especially if your sponsors are selling something really expensive to your listeners. So you might have a show that has a niche where people buy really expensive stuff. And you’re somebody who had a fishing show and his sponsors sold boats.
And if they sold two boats in a year, the sponsor was happy, right? And he made several thousand dollars commissioned from that. So that’s, that’s an extreme example. But most cases sponsors are. That, you know, you’re getting a very, very, very small percentage of what they’re making. And so in order for that to really, in order for that sponsorship to make [00:23:00] sense for you to take all of the time that it takes, find sponsors, pitch them, close them, follow up, get them to pay you, record the ad.
Put the ad on. See if they, you know, sponsorship in itself is a full time job. So I’m like, look, if you’re gonna be working full time to make money from your podcast, why not just sell something directly to them? Yeah. It’s not until, look, the show is fully grown. It’s optimized. You’ve got several thousand downloads per episode.
Okay, cool. Let’s talk about sponsorships. Let’s go find some sponsors, maybe even build out a system for that. But nine times out of 10, I just say to the entrepreneur, it feels good to have sponsors because you feel like you’re getting an ROI from the show, right? Quote unquote. Yeah, but really you’re going to just make way more money if you get more clients and customers from the show.
Teresa: Okay. So my next question then is, and this might be a myth that I’ve put into my own head, maybe it’s my own experience of my own podcast. How do we get listeners to take action? Because, and let me quantify why I think that for anybody listening, I’ve always [00:24:00] thought it can be quite tricky to get listeners to take action because when I’m listening to a podcast, I am doing something else.
I am driving in my car. I’m getting ready in the morning. I am doing a hair, whatever it might be. So I’ve always been concerned about how easy is it to get them to actually take some action.
Kevin: Yes. So you are absolutely right. A podcast listener, there’s pros and cons right to that relationship because the pro is that like you said before, that person’s hearing your voice for hours and hours on end.
They trust you so much. The con is that they’re only hearing your voice when they’re doing something else. It’s a companion medium and so their hands are full. And so the odds that they’re going to literally pull over their van on the highway and book a call is really, really low. So here’s the secret and we’ve kind of danced around this a little bit, but I basically, after I’ve done this full time for four years, I’ve worked directly with more than 400 podcasters and there’s tens of thousands of podcasters in the growth show, you know, sphere.
And so what I’ve seen in the, in the patterns that I’ve seen in the shows [00:25:00] that really work, make the most money are that you have four ingredients to a successful podcast driven business. And the podcast in its, in and of itself is one ingredient. The four ingredients are your podcasts, your long form content, Your short form content on social media, your email list, and your core offer, the thing that you are selling to people.
The shows that I have found that get the most reach and make the most money have all four of those things. So, the question of how do I get my podcast listeners to take action is Don’t expect them to take action when they hear the ad quote unquote on your show when they hear the call to action on your Show to book a call or to buy your thing But when they do take action when they do pull over they stop they pause their run pull out their phone and do the thing Is when you offer them something that they can immediately get that they really really want AKA a freebie, a lead magnet.
So the way that I, I kind of stumbled into this, but what I like, once I kind of noticed this and recreated it with clients, [00:26:00] foolproof, the number one thing to CTA call to action, your listeners to do is to consume or to download a lead magnet of some sort, a masterclass, an email course, a PDF, something like that, something that they can get immediately.
And that is the key, something that they will, that they really, really, really want. And that they can get instantly in exchange for their email. And then once they’re on your email list, that is when you can contact them again and ask them to buy your thing, book a call, whatever. Now, that’s not to say that we never talk about our offers on the podcast, because you still do want to talk about your offers on the podcast.
You still want to have an ad that talks about your program or talks about your course or whatever it is. It’s just plan for people not to immediately from the podcast buy the thing, talking about the thing, gets it in their head, they’re, Oh, that sounds good, blah, blah, blah. And then you send them an email about it and they’re like, Ah, yes, you know what?
It’s time because they’re at their email and they’ve got their credit card sitting next to them on their desk and they’re ready to go. So that is the way you want to do it is focus. My number one goal when on my podcast is to get the listeners onto my email list. [00:27:00]
Teresa: I’m so glad you said that because I think that I thought that.
you know, people should just take actions. And no, and I didn’t think this, this is the whole point. Like I kind of knew that people wouldn’t just take action off listening to a podcast or potentially just after hearing it on a podcast. And I’m so glad and grateful because that is my business, you know, podcasts, social emails offer, like I have all of the above and.
And it just makes me feel more confident that I am doing the right thing, that yes, I have this podcast and it’s awesome and I shouldn’t be panicking that no one is buying directly off something straight from the podcast and that this is part of the whole ecosystem. Like this is, you know, you should be doing it in conjunction with these other things.
Kevin: A hundred percent. And I can say that like 92%, 92 percent of the calls booked for my program come from my email list. I don’t have an exact percentage for this, but I can tell you a lot of percent of the [00:28:00] people who book that call and get on, they, they call in and they’re like, I’ve listened to like every episode of your show and they’re like telling me what, like how they need to implement what I do.
You know what I mean? They’re like, I just need, I need to implement the podcast ladder. I need a content driven. I’m like, this is great. You already know, you already know all the stuff that I talk about. But those people don’t, again, they don’t book a call from the podcast itself. It’s an email that I sent that was the right hook and Gary V speak that got them to finally book the call.
But the podcast has done its job because they’ve listened to 50 episodes and they’re so indoctrinated with the way that I think that they’re 100. They’re just like, yeah, I want to work with you. I know. I agree with the way that you look at things.
Teresa: Yeah. And that’s the other thing that’s so powerful about long form content anyway, but podcasts in particular is if they have listened to The many, many, many hundreds of episodes I have.
And, and not only like weirdly, they’ve probably seen a change in me in all those years. And there definitely has been, but like they, they must like my approach and how I do things and me as a human, [00:29:00] because otherwise you wouldn’t stick around and listen to someone’s podcast. And it’s funny, cause I’ve been listening to, I’ve been trying to listen to some new podcasts recently, some new business ones.
Because I went through a whole period of listening to no one and ignoring everything because I just, it was distracting and it was, yeah. Whereas now I’m in a much better place and I’m like, no, I want to hear what people say. And weirdly, I listened to one of those and I’m not going to say who it was. No, I won’t say who it was.
It was a big podcaster and she did. And I’m just going to say, cause this is her thing. So Jenna Kutcher, I listened to her podcast, she felt like she had an ad every like, 15 minutes, 10 minutes. And it was like two or three ads back to back. And I just couldn’t stand it. Like, I just was like, no, can’t listen.
Like, and that’s just me. Some people will be absolutely fine with that. And I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with what she did, but the ad thing I’ve always struggled with because it’s like, one, I only want something that I love and adore. And I use, which narrows down who could potentially be a sponsor [00:30:00] for my podcast.
But two, I do struggle sometimes with like, And in fact, the weirdness with Jenner’s was because I listened to Amy’s podcast, Amy has some, she has like LinkedIn ads and she has Shopify, which is interesting. So that’s physical product, but anyway, it makes sense. The stuff that she told me that makes sense.
Whereas when Jenner was doing this, it was like, what, what are we talking about here? Like, this is like something completely bizarre. So that’s why I’ve always been, been a bit like, I’m not sure I want to do that.
Kevin: Yeah. So what I’ll call out there is that because all the time people, podcasters are like, when it is time for a podcaster to get sponsorship, because there is a time and like shows that are at Amy and Jenna’s level, like they’re, they can make multiple six figures, even seven figures a year just from putting ads on their show.
So at that point it’s like, yeah, you’re, you should do.
Teresa: Honestly, would I turn that down? No, not in a million years.
Kevin: Exactly. Exactly. However, Right. However, the key to the key thing to understand is that people don’t hate ads. People hate irrelevant ads. And my favorite story that illustrates this is Tim [00:31:00] Ferriss, one of the OG, big time, personal development podcasters did an experiment in the year 2020, where he said, I, for six months, I’m going to have no ads on my podcast.
And I’m going to completely switch to a listener supported revenue model where. You know, it’s the show’s completely free for still, but listeners can elect to almost like a Patreon, like subscribe to different monthly benefits. And he launched that and he ended the experiment three months in. He actually ended the experiment early.
Not because it didn’t work. Not because he wasn’t making enough money. He was actually making more money off the podcast in a listener supported way. But because his listeners were begging for the ads to come back. Why? Because Tim Ferriss goes largely out of his way to discover Optimization products and services and gadgets and stuff like that, where his audience, which is optimizers, they’re all trying to like optimize their life and get more time, you know, they love the products that he finds and he has a robust process for vetting products.
He only Accepts advertisers for products that he uses, et cetera, et cetera. [00:32:00] People love his recommended products so much that they were like, literally this adds to the value of the show. So it’s an extreme example to illustrate that people, again, people don’t hate ads. They hate ads for a big Mac that has nothing to do with your podcast, but they love ads, like you said, with Amy, that make perfect sense.
Teresa: Yeah. And, and it was just like, so it was really interesting. Cause like I said, I haven’t listened to podcasts for a little while or not many business ons. And I was listening and I was like, I can’t like, it’s not making sense. It’s not sitting. And it completely distracted from the content, whereas. Like, and the other ones I listen to is I listen to Andrew Huberman sometimes.
So I would listen to non business ones. And there’s a guy in the UK called Rangan Chatterjee, Dr. Rangan Chatterjee, who has a health one. Like I listen to them and they always like, you know, athletic greens and barefoot and all these, like, you know, they do all the sand ones, but they make sense. And I just skip through it.
And it doesn’t feel like it detracts. It’s like, But the general example really felt like it detracted, which I was a bit [00:33:00] like, yeah, I don’t want to listen to that. Okay. So one of the things that I want us to focus on or talk about, cause I’m already conscious of the time because we’ve just been chatting and I’ve loved every second of it, but you have a four step process to growing podcasts that get business ROI called the podcast ladder.
So I would love you to explain to us what that is and how it works.
Kevin: A hundred percent. So, like I said before, I’ve been doing this completely full time for four years. My entire life has been dedicated to podcast growth. I do have a girlfriend, so it’s not that bad. You know what I mean? Like, I do have a life. But.
Teresa: You do stuff for the weekend.
Kevin: Like, go for that. Yeah, I have a girlfriend and a dog. We go to the beach on the weekend. We love electronic music, but other than that, I study podcasts. And what I have found is that through the years, I’ve been able to boil down to there are four things that a podcaster needs to get right in order to have a show that grows And that generates revenue because most of the time I’m talking to business owners.
So, you know, monetization, quote, unquote, generates revenue, make sales. I point those four, I paint those four things via the picture of a ladder [00:34:00] because what’s really important to understand is that you need to get them in order, right? So level one unlocks level two and I have come across podcasters who are really good at level three, but they have no results.
They have no listenership and no growth because they haven’t mastered level one. And so the results are at zero. Right. So you can be really, really good at level three, but if you can’t get level two or one, et cetera, et cetera, you know. But what’s great about that is some, sometimes people are very good at level three and we finally get level one unblocked and then they jump up to the results of level three.
What are those four levels in order? Well, the first level is having a clear and unique podcast premise. What do I mean by that? Well, before you have a clear and unique premise, what the, what usually happens and when a podcaster first starts is that they make their show about everything. Ranging variety of conversations, whatever I want, whoever I want to talk to.
We’re going to talk about business success. It’s just super, super, super big. What they haven’t done is they haven’t thought, Who is this show for [00:35:00] specifically? What is the show going to do for them, specifically? Not, what am I going to do on the show? That’s, that’s the mistake that people make. It’s like, I, what’s, what’s your podcast?
I interview successful entrepreneurs. I don’t care what you do. I want to know what those interviews is going to do for me. What is your show going to do for its listeners? And then number three, how is it going to do it? That’s the, what you do. That’s the format. Is it interviews? Is it solos? Is it, you know, co host conversations or whatever it might be.
So having a clear, unique premise combined. So that’s the unique part combined with clarity, where when somebody looks at your podcast feed, they can immediately get who the show is for and what it’s going to do for them. And that’s the other mistake that newbies make, or even people who have been around it a long time, they named their show after themselves, or they named their show after their brand.
And it’s just like, or, or they have a really, really creative, like clever name, that’s like a pun in three different ways. And it’s just not clear people, you know, people look at the show and it’s just like, Okay. I don’t know what that is. And my favorite example of this is an entrepreneur that I have worked with.
Her name is [00:36:00] Danielle. She has a bookkeeping services business and her show was called Entrepreneur Money Stories. What do you think that shows about?
Teresa: Well, entrepreneur money stories, like stories about people, how they make money, money mindset, like.
Kevin: Exactly. So she came to me and she was like, I don’t understand why people aren’t listening to my show.
I’m on social media. I’m doing all this stuff. I’m like, okay, tell me what you, why are you doing this? What is your goal with the show? And she said, I want my listeners to be able to read their bookkeeping data and make great business decisions from their financial metrics. Did that come across at all in Entrepreneur Money Stories?
No. Now it’s a nice name, Entrepreneur Money Stories. It’s fine, but it’s vague and you’re right. You’re like money mindset. I’m going to hear a story of how this entrepreneur, you know, was born from nothing and then blah, blah, blah. Yeah. So we said, okay, we need to make a clear, clearer, unique premise. And so we took that and we renamed the show to Business by the Books.
Business by the Books. I’m going to listen to that show and I’m going to understand how to make great [00:37:00] business decisions by looking at my bookkeeping data, right? So that’s level one, having a clear unique premise where it just makes sense. People get what they’re going to get out of the show. Once you get that locked in, then we move on to level two.
Level one means you can get people to click on the show. Level two means you can get people to stick around and actually listen to the episodes. Everybody wants growth. Every podcaster thinks they have a growth problem when in reality, most podcasters have a retention problem. People click, they press play and they don’t stick around.
And the best way to know whether or not you have a retention problem is to look at your completion rates. When people look at your episode, listen to your episodes, how much on average of the episode did they listen to? My favorite example of this is a client. I’ve told this story a million times, but it’s the best one.
His name is Nate. He was somebody who was really good at level three, which spoiler alert, level three is growth. That’s when you actually get new listeners to the show. He was doing everything. He was on social media. He was showing up on other podcasts. He was on YouTube. He was spending ads money. He was doing literally everything you can imagine to get new listeners and his show was stuck at 12, 000 downloads per [00:38:00] month.
Now 12, 000 is nothing to, you know, that’s, that’s significant. It, yep. But, with the amount of work he was doing to try to get new listeners, it makes, it made zero sense that with all that work, the show was continuously stuck at 12k. What he didn’t realize was that it wasn’t the same 12, 000 people every single month.
It was 12, 000 people would tune in and they would all be like, this isn’t good. And then next month, 12, 000 people would tune in and they’d be like, oh, this sucks. So he thought his audience was stagnant when reality, his audience was like trying to fill a wicker basket with water. It’s like, why, like, let me get a better faucet.
Why won’t the level go up? It’s because all of the water is falling out of the bottom. So the key to the number one hack. To getting people to listen to your episodes longer is to have an amazing intro that tees up who you are talking to or what you’re about to talk about. And most importantly, what the listener is going to get from this episode.
So the beginning of the episode, you said, I’m going to let you introduce yourself. [00:39:00] That’s fine that I did that. You teed me up and I was able to kind of give a little bit of my background. But what I would do is before that even begins, I would Have a little intro that says, Hey everybody, today we’re going to talk about the four things that you need to get right if you want your podcast to grow and make more money.
To do that, I’ve invited my friend Kevin, who blah blah blah blah blah, please enjoy the episode. Right? It just frames it in a way where listeners are like, Oh, this is amazing. Okay? That’s the number one thing. There’s other problems that you can have for retention, but that’s the one that I see the most.
We did this with Nate. I pressed play on his show. It was a horrible intro. He was just like, Hey, what’s up? You’re listening to Low Carb Hustle. It’s your boy Nate with my friend Juicy Cheeks. Juicy Cheeks, how are you? I’m like Nate. Who’s Juicy Cheeks? You haven’t introduced yourself? You, I have no idea what we’re talking about.
And it was like 10 minutes of banter in the beginning of the episode. We adjusted it where he would say, Hey, you’re listening to Low Carb Hustle, the podcast that lets you live a low carb lifestyle so you can have a million dollar body. Today we’re digging into, can you eat carbs? Let’s get to it. Right.
And so people are like, Oh yes, I want to know if I could. So he made that change. All he did was change the intros of his episodes [00:40:00] and his show skyrocketed in three months to 36, 000 downloads per month, just in three months. It tripled just from getting level two, right? Real quick. I know like I could talk about the podcast letter all day.
Level one and two are the most important because those are the ones that people don’t intuitively think of, right? Those are the things that people unknowingly gloss over. And so If you’re a podcaster who’s been at it for a long time and you’re hearing my voice right now and you’ve been really struggling, odds are you have an issue with levels one or level two.
Level three becomes grow the show. Get the show in front of new people who don’t know that it already exists. The three best ways to do that are getting social media reach, right, getting organic reach on social media, which is a skill. Number two is doing what I’m doing right now, which is appearing as a guest on other podcasts, because guess what, if you hear my voice right now, in your ears, I know for sure You are a podcast listener.
60 percent of the people on social media don’t listen to podcasts and you are not going to get them to start. Right? So social media can be a great way to do it, but you listener, I know you listen to [00:41:00] podcasts and I know you’re listening to one right now, so I’m going to say to you, whatever app you’re using to listen, whether it’s Spotify or Apple or one of the other crazy apps, all you got to do is search grow the show in the app that you already have open right now and you will find my podcast and you can become a podcast listener, right? The third one is YouTube. We can talk about that if you want. You don’t have to be on YouTube, but it’s really, really, really powerful. And that’s level three.
Level four we’ve already covered. Convert your listeners to customers of something. Get your listeners to buy something. Then that’s number four.
Teresa: If we could just have another hour.
Kevin: I know I blew through that because I know we only have so much time, but hopefully I didn’t go too fast.
Teresa: So the thing I, I am going at the point of recording this in May, I’m going to a big rebrand.
I had, as my listeners well know, I spent last year getting sober and. For some reason, getting sober and sorting out an addiction had with alcohol seems to have completely revolutionized me, my business, how I show up and everything. [00:42:00] And like, and how, how I feel about me, how I feel about like, even how I look and how I come across, it feels different, which is awesome.
And what it’s doing is making me review the whole entire business. It’s almost like I have woken up and I’m like, Oh no, what have I been doing? Like, you know, last year was fine. I needed to sit on the sofa and watch Grey’s Anatomy while I got sober. But prior to that, I was obviously, and I’d say this jokingly, but you know, I ran a six figure business drunk or hungover.
Like that’s how that ran. So now I feel like I am awake and I am ready to take on the world, which is brilliant. However, I’m seeing holes everywhere and we’ve just gone through the four steps and I could see a great big glaring hole in step one. So. If I work backwards obviously converting, I’m doing lead magnets, I’ve done lead magnets, I do ads and things on the show, I am on social media, I am guesting on other people’s podcasts, and I’m doing, and I’m doing even more this year than I ever have done.
[00:43:00] Two, I have just literally, probably a month or two, I’ve been, at this point of recording been doing hooks. So at the beginning of every single episode, before even my intro intro comes in, I’m like on today’s episode, we’re going to cover da da da da, but doing it in that kind of way that is like, Ooh, this is going to be so fun.
And I’m not going to tell you because you’ve got to listen. And I’m using those hooks to put them. Once I’ve recorded the audio hook, I’m creating a reel of my face saying the same thing. So that’s going out on social media. Number one. Okay. Like I’m going to give you a real quick plotted history of my podcast.
Kevin: Let’s go.
Teresa: 300 and what episode are you going to be? You’re actually going to be 359, right? So 359. So the point of this goes out, my podcast started and it was called Social Media Made Simple. Great name for a podcast if you just do social media, but I didn’t. I did to begin with when I, I’ve been in marketing for years and I [00:44:00] came into my own business doing a lot of social media stuff.
Fine. Then I went into the more online world and changed the name. So probably about 12 months, maybe 18 months in, I changed it to marketing that converts. Right. Nice. Which great. Another great name. Yeah. They changed it to that.
Kevin: We’re on the right track here.
Teresa: Yeah. No way. Wait. Cause there obviously goes a curve ball in a minute.
Kevin: Okay. Got it.
Teresa: I had marketing that converts. Because I was really focusing on the online business growth on the online business. I was doing stuff with lead pages. I was being accredited by them. I was speaking about growing an online business about landing pages and lead magnets and sales pages and launches and all of that good stuff.
And then, and I, and like I said, there’s a part of me that it has so much empathy for myself because obviously I’ve been on a right journey these last few years. Absolutely. My mindset obviously started to focus on the on the, as I started to realize there was a problem, I started doing more work on my [00:45:00] mindset was doing therapy and doing all of that, which meant I bought more of the mindset stuff into my business.
So then I changed it to your dream business, which is what it is today. Okay? Now, part of me does not mind that title because it’s very much in line with what I do and who I am and what I teach and all that sort of thing. And even still now, but that does not. tell you anything. And I am happy for you to critique away. And I’m not at all offended.
Kevin: I would actually push back on that. I would, I would say, I don’t think that it doesn’t tell you anything. I think your dream business tells me, cause what that tells me is that if I listen to this podcast, I’ll be able to build my dream business. Is that the goal?
Teresa: And that is the goal.
Kevin: Yes. So what you want it. So I’m cool with that as a podcast title. Actually, we want the podcast title to convey one of three things, an outcome, An identity or an ideal, right? It’s the mission of the show. What is the mission of the show? And so yours conveys an outcome, your dream business, right? So [00:46:00] really what takes it home though, is your podcast tagline.
So there’s an excellent book about podcasting called make noise by Eric Newsom. Eric Newsom essentially built the podcasting department at NPR, which is The U. S. is BBC, I think. And so, he like, brought NPR into podcasting. NPR has created some of the most, you know, world renowned podcasts ever. And he was basically the godfather of podcasting at NPR.
And he wrote a great book, it’s called Make Noise. And in that book, there’s an exercise that he puts forth called the 10 word description exercise, where no matter what your podcast is about, you have to describe it in 10 words. No less, and in a way that is unique, specific, and describes no other podcast in the world.
Now, what I’ll say is that, over the last four years, I have dropped, I’ve been teaching this exercise with my students. Yeah. And. I no longer call it the 10 word description exercise because what happens is people tend to latch onto that and make it, you know, Oh, it’s gotta be 10 words and then they make a worse description.
You know, it’s okay if it’s 14, [00:47:00] right? But the ethos of it is in one sentence, you convey what the show is going to do. What is the mission of the show? So your title and tagline combined. Title, tagline, basically one sentence conveys everything you need to hear. So for me, you’re listening to grow the show, the podcast that helps you grow your podcast.
Pretty specific, right? Yeah. Done. So if you were to say you’re listening to your dream business, where, what?
Teresa: Yeah. So this is actually, so again, in all of this, I’m almost going back to some of my marketing routes of, I’m focusing back in on online business people, you know, launches, offers, lead magnets, audience growth.
So I tweaked my intro a little while back, which does talk to, if you’re a course creator membership owner or a coach, however, it’s not specific enough. It’s not. Yeah. I need to work on that. So I think it’s about [00:48:00] helping them because the reason I chose dream business as well is because often in the online space, there’s this whole thing of like, make money from anywhere, reoccurring income, live on the beach, make loads of money.
And that isn’t how it looks for lots of people, but that also isn’t necessarily what lots of people want. Like, and I wanted to empower people to say, you can have an online business that works for you, your season of life at this point. And. you’re okay with that. Like it’s your dream business. You get to decide.
You don’t have to do seven figures or a seven figure launch. If that’s not what is important to you, if you would rather work three days and do the school run and in a really good amount of money for doing that, then great. Like that’s your dream business. Well done you. High five. You’ve done it. You’re amazing.
Yeah. So it was about that kind of Empowerment piece of you get to decide, but then I guess where the podcast is now focusing or leaning towards is the whole, I’m giving you the strategy, the tactics, the motivation, the, the [00:49:00] stories, the mindset, like all of those sort of things, but to grow their online business.
Kevin: Okay, so to me, because it sounds like you’re in the headspace of reconsidering the name, which is fine.
Teresa: Which part of me doesn’t want to because like I’ve changed it three freaking times.
Kevin: Yeah, and I get that and I get this a lot with especially podcasters who have been at it for a while. The longer they’re at it, the more resistant they are to change their name because of quote unquote sunk cost.
But you don’t want to think of that. You don’t want to think of the last five years and 300 episodes. We want to think about the next 50 years, 3, 000 episodes and 100, 000 people who haven’t discovered the show yet. You That is who we’re changing the name for. So what you shared with your goal for the show, what I would, my feedback would be you can, you can take one of two ways with it.
You can, you can make the title of the show more tactical, more, you know, like, you know, that type of like, you know, tools, tips, marketing, blah, blah, blah. Or you, I think if you were to keep it more along the Your Dream Business line, I would want to see more [00:50:00] of the distinction that It’s your dream business, right?
That you are creating a business that works for you, not the other way around, not making it so that you work for your business. Yeah. So. You know, that, that type of thing could be in the title and I think would make it more accurate to what you’re actually trying to do with your dream business, which is to make it clear like, Hey, this is your, this is your thing to decide.
You don’t have to go by everybody else. And so you could do that. Like you could say you’re listening to your dream business where you build a business that works for you. Instead of the other way around, like that could be a great title and tagline for it. Or you can make it more tactical. You’re listening to blank where you learn the tactics, the strategies, all that stuff, but just keep in mind that those are two very different podcasts, right?
Two very different shows because they have two very different missions, like in the way that they come across. So anyway, those are my kind of thoughts on where you’re at right now.
Teresa: Well, that is super helpful. And actually, you know, my thought was that I wouldn’t change the name, but [00:51:00] for the reason that you said and actually have really clearly kind of communicated that is not as important.
You know, it doesn’t really matter about all those years. It matters about what I’m doing going forward. And, and the whole idea of reviewing everything is that like, okay, am I maximizing this? Am I? Now I love doing the podcast and I can’t ever see myself stopping, but is it really doing for me what it needs to do?
Because it’s a ton of work. Like, you know, that like, you know, you’ve done many podcasts, you, you, you know, you started your podcast and it didn’t do enough for you. So it’s like, we, I really now want to make sure it goes, okay, you’re working as hard as, as you can work for me and therefore I’m getting a return from it. So
Kevin: I have a request.
Teresa: Yes.
Kevin: Of your listeners.
Teresa: Okay.
Kevin: So what I would like for them to do, you hear my voice right now, what I want you to do is reach out after having heard us talk about this, I want you to reach out to Teresa and tell her what you get out of the show.
Teresa: [00:52:00] Oh, I’d love that.
Kevin: And, Of what, you know, your dream business, a business that works for you, tactics, whatever it is.
Why are you here? Why are you listening to the show right now? What do you get from listening to Teresa? And then I, and then you listen to that and keep that in mind when you decide whether or not to change the title of the show.
Teresa: Such a good idea. Thank you. And I would very much appreciate if people do that.
That’d be very kind of you. Kevin, this has been brilliant. This has been so, so good. And like I said, very selfishly, but like so much good stuff for people. If you are just starting or if you have a podcast like me and have had some time, I just think I’m in such a space at the moment where I’m like, just give me all the information.
Let’s take it all in. Like what can we learn? And there was so much from this episode. Kevin, where do you hang out? Where do you want people to come and say hi to you online?
Kevin: Yeah. So, I mean, if you want to interact with me, Instagram is the best place. My, my, my name is my name, right? So it’s at Kevin Chemidlin, which I should probably make it something simpler because Chemidlin is not an easy.
So put a link in the show notes if you don’t mind. [00:53:00]
Teresa: I will put it in my show notes.
Kevin: And if you want to learn more about the tactics of how to implement the podcast ladder, there’s two ways you can do it. You can read it via a email course at 12daysofpodcastgrowth. com, 12daysofpodcastgrowth. com. Or if you prefer video, you can watch a masterclass that I have.
It’s how to take a show past six figures in six months. And that’s at growtheshow. com slash masterclass.
Teresa: Amazing. Amazing. Amazing. Kevin. Thank you so much. It’s been an absolute pleasure to have you on.
Kevin: The pleasure is all mine. Thank you so much for having me.
