Beyond Downloads: The Moments That Prove People Are Listening

David Jackson:00:00:00

It is question of the month time, and this month's

 

David Jackson:00:00:04

question is how long did it take before you felt like you had,

 

David Jackson:00:00:09

and this is in quotation marks, real listeners, and what made

 

David Jackson:00:00:14

you realize that? Now, if you don't feel like you have real

 

David Jackson:00:00:19

listeners, what would make it feel real? And you'll see with

 

David Jackson:00:00:25

this question and next month's question, I'm trying to

 

David Jackson:00:00:29

understand and set expectations for new podcasters. Let's hear

 

David Jackson:00:00:35

what you guys had to say. Hit it, ladies.

 

David Jackson:00:00:38

The SOP Singers: The School of Podcasting with Dave Jackson,

 

David Jackson:00:00:44

podcasting since 2005. I am your award-winning

 

David Jackson:00:00:48

Hall of Fame podcast coach, Dave Jackson. Thanking you so much

 

David Jackson:00:00:52

for tuning in. If you're new to the show, this is where we help

 

David Jackson:00:00:55

you plan, launch, and grow your podcast. You want to monetize

 

David Jackson:00:00:58

it? Yeah, we can help you with that as well. The website is

 

David Jackson:00:01:03

schoolofpodcasting.com. If you go to schoolofpodcasting.com/

 

David Jackson:00:01:07

1059, you'll find today's show notes, and that's brought to you

 

David Jackson:00:01:12

by podpage.com. And so, our first answer was already

 

David Jackson:00:01:18

recorded live on Ask the Podcast Coach. I had Neil Valeo from Pod

 

David Jackson:00:01:25

Mastery Podcasting Insights Show. You've heard me mention

 

David Jackson:00:01:29

him before, and my regular co-host was out, and I asked

 

David Jackson:00:01:33

Neil to sit in the chair. And I said, "Hey, before we leave, how

 

David Jackson:00:01:37

about you answer this question? When do you feel like you have a

 

David Jackson:00:01:40

real audience, and he said

 

Neal Veglio:00:01:42

feedback for me, 100%. If you get an email from

 

Neal Veglio:00:01:46

somebody, and and I'm delighted, like seeing the download number.

 

Neal Veglio:00:01:49

In fact, I did an episode about this just yesterday. That you

 

Neal Veglio:00:01:54

know, you've got like Rob Walsh, our mutual friend, did a whole

 

Neal Veglio:00:01:59

spiel on don't crap on the download, and fundamentally he's

 

Neal Veglio:00:02:02

right because it is the only measurement we got right now.

 

Neal Veglio:00:02:05

But a download is a number. Getting an email or a text

 

Neal Veglio:00:02:09

message or some you know outreach from your community

 

Neal Veglio:00:02:14

that really makes the difference between okay, I'm putting

 

Neal Veglio:00:02:16

content out and hoping for the best, and oh, this is impacting.

 

Neal Veglio:00:02:21

People are resonating with this, and it's it's absolutely

 

Neal Veglio:00:02:24

achieving the goals that I set out to achieve. So that for me

 

Neal Veglio:00:02:27

is 100%. If I get an email, I'm I'm celebrating. That's it.

 

David Jackson:00:02:32

Excellent. Let's stick with accents and go over

 

David Jackson:00:02:34

to Josh Listen from the Saki This Show.

 

Josh Liston:00:02:39

G'day, Dave. G'day, SAP. Is Josh here from

 

Josh Liston:00:02:41

sakethis.com? Sake This is a short form sketch show all about

 

Josh Liston:00:02:46

news, trivia, and travel stories from the amazing country of

 

Josh Liston:00:02:49

Japan. If you've got a spare couple of minutes and you're

 

Josh Liston:00:02:52

chasing a laugh, maybe check it out. So the first time that I

 

Josh Liston:00:02:57

ever felt like I had a real audience, that I was having real

 

Josh Liston:00:03:01

impact was on a hyper local show that I host called Punching

 

Josh Liston:00:03:06

Sideways. I had multiple people, and my co-host Mel did as well,

 

Josh Liston:00:03:11

tell us we listened to your show to know if we wanted to move

 

Josh Liston:00:03:16

here, or we got moved here for work or through the military or

 

Josh Liston:00:03:21

whatever it was, and we wanted to know what's the local music

 

Josh Liston:00:03:24

scene like. Who are the sports stars? What's the art scene

 

Josh Liston:00:03:27

like? Are there comedians there? All of these things they learnt

 

Josh Liston:00:03:31

from our little podcast, which we really just made to make each

 

Josh Liston:00:03:34

other laugh. Absolutely mind-boggling. It took a fair

 

Josh Liston:00:03:38

while to get to that point, though, guys. So just stick with

 

Josh Liston:00:03:40

it. That's the key. Anyways, thank you, Dave. Thanks,

 

Josh Liston:00:03:43

everybody. Josh and Sarkoy, this signing off.

 

David Jackson:00:03:46

Josh, thank you so much. And I should have said

 

David Jackson:00:03:48

this at the beginning. I always assume you know this, but links

 

David Jackson:00:03:51

to everybody's show will be in the show notes. Next up, we have

 

David Jackson:00:03:57

Mark from Practical Prepping. Info.

 

Mark Lawley:00:04:00

Hey, Dave. Mark Lawley from Practical Prepping.

 

Mark Lawley:00:04:03

Like everyone else, we looked a lot at the download numbers when

 

Mark Lawley:00:04:07

we first started, but the realization that we had real

 

Mark Lawley:00:04:10

listeners came at around one year when we started getting

 

Mark Lawley:00:04:14

emails from listeners. Some were thanking us for a specific

 

Mark Lawley:00:04:18

episode or even suggesting episode topic, but the ones that

 

Mark Lawley:00:04:23

really struck home were the ones where a listener told us they

 

Mark Lawley:00:04:27

had followed our advice and how it had them prepared for a

 

Mark Lawley:00:04:31

severe weather event or even a personal crisis. I told the

 

Mark Lawley:00:04:35

story at Empowered Podcasting about a young lady with two

 

Mark Lawley:00:04:38

small children that had bought a NOAA weather radio, and every

 

Mark Lawley:00:04:42

household should have one of those. And she had prepared a go

 

Mark Lawley:00:04:47

bag as well. And there was an outbreak of tornadoes in her

 

Mark Lawley:00:04:51

area. When there was a tornado warning for her area, she

 

Mark Lawley:00:04:55

grabbed the children in the bag and she went to the local

 

Mark Lawley:00:04:58

shelter. And she said. She would not have known about the warning

 

Mark Lawley:00:05:03

had she not bought the weather radio, and she would not have

 

Mark Lawley:00:05:06

had everything she needed for the children had she not

 

Mark Lawley:00:05:09

prepackaged the bag. She ended her email by saying, "Yesterday,

 

Mark Lawley:00:05:15

you and Krista saved lives." So let me encourage your listeners:

 

Mark Lawley:00:05:20

if you don't have a NOAA weather radio to alert you to severe

 

Mark Lawley:00:05:24

weather, get one. Thank you, Dave, for all you do. Again,

 

Mark Lawley:00:05:28

this is Mark Lawley, co-host of Practical Prepping. You can find

 

Mark Lawley:00:05:33

everything that we do at practicalprepping.info.

 

David Jackson:00:05:38

Thank you, Mark. And you can go over to

 

David Jackson:00:05:40

practicalprepping.info, and I'm sure he's got a link to that

 

David Jackson:00:05:43

radio. I know I have one because of Mark, and we have tornadoes

 

David Jackson:00:05:47

go through Ohio on a fairly regular basis. More

 

David Jackson:00:05:50

thunderstorms, but yeah, it's a good thing to have. Next up, we

 

David Jackson:00:05:54

have Rob.

 

Rob Dalrymple:00:05:55

Hey, Dave, this is Rob Darrenpole from the

 

Rob Dalrymple:00:05:57

Softball Central Podcast. You can find

 

Rob Dalrymple:00:06:00

us@softballcentralpodcast.com. We help players, parents,

 

Rob Dalrymple:00:06:05

coaches, and fans navigate the fast pitch softball world. The

 

Rob Dalrymple:00:06:09

question is, how long did it take before we felt like we had

 

Rob Dalrymple:00:06:13

real listeners? Honestly, I think we had them before we even

 

Rob Dalrymple:00:06:16

started. Of course, that may be just optimism, caffeine, or

 

Rob Dalrymple:00:06:20

complete misunderstanding of how podcasting works. When we

 

Rob Dalrymple:00:06:23

released the coming soon promo, we got over 2000 views. Then we

 

Rob Dalrymple:00:06:28

launched three episodes on day one and racked up over 400

 

Rob Dalrymple:00:06:32

listens and views in the first week. Not exactly Joe Rogan

 

Rob Dalrymple:00:06:36

numbers, I know.

 

David Jackson:00:06:37

All right, I'm going to jump in here. I used to

 

David Jackson:00:06:40

teach, and 20 people was a full class. And so, if that's 400 per

 

David Jackson:00:06:46

episode, that is 20 classrooms of people. So think about that.

 

David Jackson:00:06:51

That's a very long hallway of of people. Holy cow! Nice job.

 

Rob Dalrymple:00:06:58

But nobody was more excited than us. The

 

Rob Dalrymple:00:07:01

downloads and the views and the listens; those are great and

 

Rob Dalrymple:00:07:05

everything. But I really want to build a community, you know, and

 

Rob Dalrymple:00:07:09

have people interact with the show.

 

David Jackson:00:07:13

I will put a link to school if you just want to.

 

David Jackson:00:07:16

If you're not sure if it's going to work and you want to kind of

 

David Jackson:00:07:19

test that idea, school was only nine bucks a month for a

 

David Jackson:00:07:22

community.

 

Unknown:00:07:23

I've been soaking up all of your excellent free

 

Unknown:00:07:25

advice, but apparently, listening to a podcast above

 

Unknown:00:07:29

podcasting doesn't make you a podcaster. Go figure.

 

David Jackson:00:07:33

Yep, you gotta actually, you know, record and

 

David Jackson:00:07:36

publish that kind of stuff with an RSS feed.

 

Unknown:00:07:40

I know it's time to stop trying to piece everything

 

Unknown:00:07:42

together myself and join the school of podcasting.

 

David Jackson:00:07:45

Use the coupon code listener when you sign up

 

David Jackson:00:07:48

for either a monthly, quarterly, or yearly subscription.

 

Unknown:00:07:50

Some personalized coaching. My wife might call it

 

Unknown:00:07:54

spending money on another hobby. I'm calling it investing in the

 

Unknown:00:07:57

future of softball media,

 

David Jackson:00:07:59

and more importantly, investing in

 

David Jackson:00:08:01

yourself because that skill goes into your brain to take into

 

David Jackson:00:08:05

other places.

 

Unknown:00:08:07

Sounds more professional. I'm going to write

 

Unknown:00:08:08

that down. Chelsea, Dave, thank you for everything you do. You

 

Unknown:00:08:12

make my Monday every week, and I really appreciate all the

 

Unknown:00:08:15

knowledge, humor, and encouragement you share. Now I

 

Unknown:00:08:18

just need to figure out how to get the rest of the softball

 

Unknown:00:08:20

world to listen to us as faithfully as I listen to you.

 

David Jackson:00:08:24

You can start with business cards; they're

 

David Jackson:00:08:26

cheap. Have a QR code on it and hand them out at games.

 

Unknown:00:08:30

Keep up the great work, buddy. Ciao.

 

David Jackson:00:08:32

Thank you, Rob. Hope to see you on the inside

 

David Jackson:00:08:35

very soon. Next up, we have Chris.

 

Chris Smith:00:08:38

Hey, what's happening? I am Chris of Cool

 

Chris Smith:00:08:41

Cars with Chris. You can find that@coolcarswithchris.com. And

 

Chris Smith:00:08:46

like the name says, it's a show about cool cars. You see, I got

 

Chris Smith:00:08:50

a cool car. I love cars, and my co host he also has a cool car,

 

Chris Smith:00:08:54

and he definitely loves cars. And we go to the cars and coffee

 

Chris Smith:00:08:57

events all around Southern California, and we meet other

 

Chris Smith:00:09:01

people with their cool cars, and we basically showcase their

 

Chris Smith:00:09:04

cars, talk about cars and cool cars and car-related content on

 

Chris Smith:00:09:09

the show. And the show really has only been around for I think

 

Chris Smith:00:09:13

we just turned a year just recently. And to answer your

 

Chris Smith:00:09:17

question, how long has it been since we actually realized you

 

Chris Smith:00:09:20

probably made it. Well, I'd say probably this year because just

 

Chris Smith:00:09:24

the other day, my co-host told me a story. He said he was in

 

Chris Smith:00:09:28

Harbor Freight just buying some random stuff, and he said the

 

Chris Smith:00:09:31

clerk there actually recognized him from the podcast and said,

 

Chris Smith:00:09:36

"Hey, I was going to tell you I started listening to your show,

 

Chris Smith:00:09:40

and I guess he said he just found it in his feed or

 

Chris Smith:00:09:43

something. I don't know how he actually found the show, but he

 

Chris Smith:00:09:46

was actually listening to the show. Imagine that meeting a

 

Chris Smith:00:09:50

totally random stranger at a store saying they listen to your

 

Chris Smith:00:09:54

show and they recognize you from the podcast. I think that's

 

Chris Smith:00:09:57

super cool. I would say probably this whole. Year so far has been

 

Chris Smith:00:10:03

pretty amazing, and that is that. So, if you want to find

 

Chris Smith:00:10:07

out more about us, you go to coolcarswithchris.com, drive

 

Chris Smith:00:10:11

safe, and we'll see you later.

 

David Jackson:00:10:12

Thank you, Chris. That's cool. Next up, we've got

 

David Jackson:00:10:16

Kim

 

Kim Newlove:00:10:17

Dave. Jeez, you ask the easy questions. Hi, this is

 

Kim Newlove:00:10:21

Kim Newlove from the Pharmacist's Voice podcast and

 

Kim Newlove:00:10:24

the Perrysburg podcast. It took me about six months with each

 

Kim Newlove:00:10:28

podcast to feel like I had real listeners. The Pharmacists'

 

Kim Newlove:00:10:32

Voice podcast explores pharmacy topics and careers, so my

 

Kim Newlove:00:10:37

audience feels connected to the profession of pharmacy and

 

Kim Newlove:00:10:40

inspired to contribute to it, the website is

 

Kim Newlove:00:10:44

thepharmacistsvoice.com. Now, after I published episode 22 of

 

Kim Newlove:00:10:50

the Pharmacist Voice podcast, I got a LinkedIn message from a

 

Kim Newlove:00:10:54

pharmacy student in Miami, Florida, saying that he heard

 

Kim Newlove:00:10:58

that I volunteered to do poisoning prevention education.

 

Kim Newlove:00:11:01

So my volunteer work resonated with him. I felt like I was

 

Kim Newlove:00:11:06

really getting through to someone when this happened. I'm

 

Kim Newlove:00:11:10

in Ohio, he's in Florida. I'm a pharmacist. He was a student, so

 

Kim Newlove:00:11:17

I realized I was reaching more than Ohioans and more than just

 

Kim Newlove:00:11:21

pharmacists, and that made me feel like I was reaching more

 

Kim Newlove:00:11:27

than just people who already know me, people who are local to

 

Kim Newlove:00:11:31

me, people who know me from conferences, etc. I felt like I

 

Kim Newlove:00:11:35

was really reaching someone. Over the years, I've also gotten

 

Kim Newlove:00:11:38

emails and voicemails with people pitching themselves as

 

Kim Newlove:00:11:42

guests, or recommending guests, nominating guests, asking me to

 

Kim Newlove:00:11:46

cover certain topics, or asking me to do drug pronunciation that

 

Kim Newlove:00:11:51

they struggle with for my drug pronunciation series on the

 

Kim Newlove:00:11:55

podcast, and I currently feel like I have real listeners when

 

Kim Newlove:00:11:59

I go to a pharmacist conference and people walk up to me and

 

Kim Newlove:00:12:02

say, "Hey, I want to get a picture with the pharmacist

 

Kim Newlove:00:12:06

voice." I know they're half joking, but they take the

 

Kim Newlove:00:12:09

picture and then they actually post it on social media and they

 

Kim Newlove:00:12:13

tag me. I'm a little embarrassed, but I do think

 

Kim Newlove:00:12:16

that's really cool. People are listening.

 

David Jackson:00:12:19

Okay, I'm going to jump in here. In the event

 

David Jackson:00:12:21

somebody recognizes you and they ask, and they they're like,

 

David Jackson:00:12:26

"Hey, I listened to your show." They're probably wanting to ask

 

David Jackson:00:12:30

you, "Can I get a picture with you?" But they might be

 

David Jackson:00:12:33

embarrassed, so you should recommend, "Hey, it's so great

 

David Jackson:00:12:37

meeting you. Can I get a picture with you?" And that opens the

 

David Jackson:00:12:42

door, and they're like, "Yeah, can I take one too?"

 

Unknown:00:12:44

I feel like people are listening when my guests promote

 

Unknown:00:12:48

our podcast interviews on their website or social media too. I

 

Unknown:00:12:52

feel like, yeah, they're listening. They're happy they

 

Unknown:00:12:55

were on my podcast, and they want other people to know about

 

Unknown:00:12:58

it. So that's cool. My other show is called the Perrysburg

 

Unknown:00:13:02

Podcast. The Perrysburg Podcast is a resource for Perrysburg

 

Unknown:00:13:07

residents. We talk about what's in Perrysburg, Ohio, and why

 

Unknown:00:13:11

people like to live here. The website is

 

Unknown:00:13:13

perrysburgpodcast.com. I had just published episode 20, and

 

Unknown:00:13:19

then some magic happened. Episode 20 was about porch

 

Unknown:00:13:23

pirates, and it was around Christmas time. Porch pirates

 

Unknown:00:13:27

are those thieves who take your packages off your porch that get

 

Unknown:00:13:31

delivered around Christmas time. Porch pirates. So there you go.

 

David Jackson:00:13:35

All right. On this one, Kim kind of took us on

 

David Jackson:00:13:39

the scenic route, but there's some interesting tips here, not

 

David Jackson:00:13:42

just about when did it feel like she had a real audience, but

 

David Jackson:00:13:45

also about growing your show.

 

Unknown:00:13:47

Once upon a time, somebody had told me that I

 

Unknown:00:13:50

should launch my podcast with at least 20 episodes,

 

David Jackson:00:13:54

and that person was not me. And Kim waited till

 

David Jackson:00:13:57

she had 20 episodes to start promoting the show.

 

Unknown:00:14:01

So episode 20 was an interview with Perrysburg,

 

Unknown:00:14:05

Ohio's crime prevention specialist for the you know city

 

Unknown:00:14:09

of Perrysburg's police division, and also I had the public

 

Unknown:00:14:14

information officer on that episode as well. After the

 

Unknown:00:14:18

interview, I told both of them that I'd be promoting the

 

Unknown:00:14:21

episode on the Perrysburg, Ohio Facebook group, which has like

 

Unknown:00:14:26

20,000 some participants, and it's a great way to get the word

 

Unknown:00:14:29

out about something. Both the public information officer and

 

Unknown:00:14:34

the police officer that I interviewed offered to promote

 

Unknown:00:14:38

the episode through the city of Perrysburg's social media

 

Unknown:00:14:42

channels and the police division's social media

 

Unknown:00:14:45

channels, for the first time in the life of the podcast, I felt

 

Unknown:00:14:49

like I had help with promotion, and that felt good. But then,

 

Unknown:00:14:54

when all the posts went up, people were commenting like,

 

Unknown:00:14:59

"Hey.". I didn't know Perrysburg had a podcast, and at that

 

Unknown:00:15:03

point, I felt like people were listening. I mean, they were

 

Unknown:00:15:07

commenting, so that was social proof. But you could see it in

 

Unknown:00:15:11

the downloads too. The downloads took off after that. I felt

 

Unknown:00:15:16

seen.

 

David Jackson:00:15:17

So number one, I would not record. I might record

 

David Jackson:00:15:21

20 episodes, but a lot of those would be tests. Like it might be

 

David Jackson:00:15:26

20 versions of episode one type of thing. So that would be not

 

David Jackson:00:15:32

something I recommend. And number two, I definitely

 

David Jackson:00:15:35

recommend promoting the show the minute it's available because

 

David Jackson:00:15:39

that can help keep you going because when you don't get any

 

David Jackson:00:15:43

downloads and nobody's watching, that can just be soul crushing.

 

David Jackson:00:15:46

So don't wait till episode 20 to start promoting your show. But

 

David Jackson:00:15:51

Kim had one more way that made her feel like she had a real

 

David Jackson:00:15:56

audience,

 

Unknown:00:15:58

and I've even had a troll. I don't know if I'm

 

Unknown:00:16:01

supposed to say this, but you can tell people are listening

 

Unknown:00:16:05

when they throw some shade. I interviewed somebody that this

 

Unknown:00:16:10

troll didn't like, and he let me have it. So I'm sorry to be

 

Unknown:00:16:14

negative, but hey, it's proof that people are listening,

 

Unknown:00:16:18

right? I am a student of the School of Podcasting, and I

 

Unknown:00:16:23

really appreciate everything you've done for me. Thanks for

 

Unknown:00:16:26

all you do, Dave, and happy podcasting, everyone.

 

David Jackson:00:16:30

When did I feel like I had an audience? I'll

 

David Jackson:00:16:32

answer that in just a second.

 

David Jackson:00:16:35

The SOP Singers: The School of Podcasting, yeah, yeah, yeah.

 

David Jackson:00:16:39

Mine was pretty easy, and I've told this story

 

David Jackson:00:16:41

before. I am bankrupt and divorced in my brother's

 

David Jackson:00:16:45

basement. I start a podcast, and I'm going to say it was less

 

David Jackson:00:16:50

than six weeks. I got a voicemail from Michael Van Laar

 

David Jackson:00:16:55

from Nuremberg, Germany, and I about fell out of my chair

 

David Jackson:00:16:59

because I was in nowhere, Ohio, so that's an example. I remember

 

David Jackson:00:17:05

once when I was doing a speaking gig, I had announced I was going

 

David Jackson:00:17:10

to be in some city, and Kale Nelson reached out to me and

 

David Jackson:00:17:14

said, "Hey, that's kind of in my neighborhood. Can I take you to

 

David Jackson:00:17:18

dinner?" And I mean, we could go on for hours, but even that

 

David Jackson:00:17:22

again is feedback that hey, there's someone here. But just

 

David Jackson:00:17:26

realize that it does take time. Josh talked about that. We all

 

David Jackson:00:17:32

know it takes time. Another thing for me, I joke about this.

 

David Jackson:00:17:36

I don't think you're a real podcaster till you have a one

 

David Jackson:00:17:38

star review, because that's really when you've moved

 

David Jackson:00:17:42

somebody now, not in the way you wanted to, but there is that.

 

David Jackson:00:17:46

But one of the things that is kind of a theme here is where

 

David Jackson:00:17:50

people reached out to you in one way or another, and make sure of

 

David Jackson:00:17:56

two things. Number one, make sure you have a clear, you know,

 

David Jackson:00:17:59

navigation, some sort of button that says contact, and when it

 

David Jackson:00:18:04

goes there, you yourself should go there right now and send

 

David Jackson:00:18:09

yourself a message and make sure you get it, because there are

 

David Jackson:00:18:14

times when I've reached out to people when I do my what's your

 

David Jackson:00:18:18

favorite podcast episodes at the end of the year, I reach out to

 

David Jackson:00:18:21

other people to say, "Hey, you know, so and so liked your

 

David Jackson:00:18:26

show," and I can't because the only way to contact them is to

 

David Jackson:00:18:29

DM them on Instagram. No, everybody understands email.

 

David Jackson:00:18:34

That would be my preferred method. But and I realize you're

 

David Jackson:00:18:37

like, nah, man, TikTok. Okay, well, just whatever. Just make

 

David Jackson:00:18:40

sure that if you want feedback, you make it super easy. For me,

 

David Jackson:00:18:47

you can go to schoolofpodcasting.com/voicemail,

 

David Jackson:00:18:51

and in a minute, I will talk about why I might be using that

 

David Jackson:00:18:55

more in the future. And I owe Chris and Albert an apology.

 

David Jackson:00:18:59

That's not really my fault, but

 

Unknown:00:19:03

it is. The School of Podcasting, yeah, yeah, yeah.

 

David Jackson:00:19:07

All right, I want to give a couple quick

 

David Jackson:00:19:09

shoutouts. One, and this is actually a great show. This is

 

David Jackson:00:19:12

the show that when Albert did a listener party at the School of

 

David Jackson:00:19:18

Podcasting, where we all listen to your show and give you

 

David Jackson:00:19:20

feedback. We're all like, when is this going live? And it's at

 

David Jackson:00:19:24

mental rehearsal dot show. He's got a great episode. He has a

 

David Jackson:00:19:28

lot of great episodes over there. But if you're a

 

David Jackson:00:19:30

perfectionist, definitely check out the august 16 episode on

 

David Jackson:00:19:35

dealing with perfectionism. And the other person I want to shout

 

David Jackson:00:19:39

out is Chris Nessie? Chris is C H R I S. Nessie is N E S I. He

 

David Jackson:00:19:45

is the king of ed tech, and both Albert and Chris sent in

 

David Jackson:00:19:52

messages. And I hate to do this because I love Pat over at Fan

 

David Jackson:00:19:57

List, but it failed. And so I reached out on. I know Chris

 

David Jackson:00:20:03

listens on Saturday, and I'm like, "Hey, if you left me a

 

David Jackson:00:20:05

message on Fan List, it's truncating them down to five

 

David Jackson:00:20:09

seconds." And Chris actually went over and left his answer

 

David Jackson:00:20:15

again.

 

Chris Nesi:00:20:16

Hey, Dave Jackson. I mean

 

David Jackson:00:20:19

the. And here's Albert.

 

Albert Bermanti:00:20:21

Hello, Dave. This is Albert Bermanti from

 

Albert Bermanti:00:20:23

Mental Rehearsal Podcast,

 

David Jackson:00:20:25

and that's all I got. And it's truncated to five

 

David Jackson:00:20:29

seconds. I left myself a message. I saw it in the

 

David Jackson:00:20:33

dashboard. It was over a minute long. I went to bed. I woke up

 

David Jackson:00:20:36

the next day. It was truncated down to five seconds. So Pat is

 

David Jackson:00:20:41

having a bad day over at Fan List, so I think at least for

 

David Jackson:00:20:45

now I'll be sending people where when you go to

 

David Jackson:00:20:48

schoolofpodcasting.com/question, you can upload a file, which is

 

David Jackson:00:20:52

what most people do because you're podcasters and you

 

David Jackson:00:20:54

recorded it. But it's also really easy to click and leave a

 

David Jackson:00:20:57

voicemail, and so now I have a button that says "Leave

 

David Jackson:00:21:01

Voicemail," which takes you to schoolofpodcasting.com/voicemail,

 

David Jackson:00:21:06

which is the voicemail system that is built into Podpage. Now,

 

David Jackson:00:21:10

if I and that's going to limit you to two minutes. Two minutes

 

David Jackson:00:21:13

is a pretty long time to leave a message. Now, if I wanted

 

David Jackson:00:21:18

something longer, I could use like Speak pipe or something

 

David Jackson:00:21:21

like that, and I'm sure Pat will fix whatever's going on at Fan

 

David Jackson:00:21:24

List. But I just wanted to say I'm sorry, even though it's not

 

David Jackson:00:21:28

really my fault. To again Albert over at Mental Rehearsal Show

 

David Jackson:00:21:34

and Chris over at Chris Nessie.com. And here's the

 

thing:00:21:39

here's what's fun because I use Captivate. In the event

 

thing:00:21:42

they sent in their actions, their actions, yeah, their

 

thing:00:21:46

answers, it will be right here. And if you didn't hear anything,

 

thing:00:21:52

they didn't. But if you did, I put them in later dynamically.

 

thing:00:21:56

So there we go. Notice nobody said when I went over a million

 

thing:00:22:01

downloads, or when I had, we never heard any giant numbers.

 

thing:00:22:07

It was simply the fact that somebody was listening, and

 

thing:00:22:10

that's when I hear people say like, "Oh, I only got 60

 

thing:00:22:13

downloads an episode." That's three classrooms. If you go out

 

thing:00:22:17

to buzzsprout.com/stats, they actually. have a page, and you

 

thing:00:22:24

can see where the median number is probably a lot lower than you

 

thing:00:22:30

think it is right now. As I look at it here in October of 2026,

 

thing:00:22:36

it's 27. 27. What, Dave? 27 downloads per episode. Now that

 

thing:00:22:43

means 50% get more and 50% get less. The top 1% on Buzzsprout

 

thing:00:22:48

is close to 5000. That's after seven days, so keep that in

 

thing:00:22:53

mind. So when you say 27, that's after the first week. So compare

 

thing:00:22:58

your numbers and see where you're at. But realize that's

 

thing:00:23:01

not really the key. My buddy Ray over at Around the Layout says

 

thing:00:23:07

it's not how many, it's who many. It's the who that matters

 

thing:00:23:11

because if I had you know 2000 people that love knitting but

 

thing:00:23:16

never want to start a podcast, that's not really a great

 

thing:00:23:19

audience for me. I'm looking for entrepreneurs and people that

 

thing:00:23:24

want to start a podcast. So keep that in mind. Comparing

 

thing:00:23:28

downloads, I often say, podcasting is a lot like golf or

 

thing:00:23:34

bowling. You're only as good as your last game, and you can't

 

thing:00:23:40

really compare yourself to others because they've been

 

thing:00:23:44

doing the sport longer, and it really doesn't matter what they

 

thing:00:23:49

do. In the end, the results are only based on you, and that kind

 

thing:00:23:55

of makes some people wet their pants because they take it

 

thing:00:23:58

personal. But there are other things. For example, back back

 

thing:00:24:02

in the day, John Lee Dumas was a guy that just had this

 

thing:00:24:07

incredibly popular show called Entrepreneurs on Fire. Well,

 

thing:00:24:13

John had a lot of money in the bank. He was very good at saving

 

thing:00:24:17

money, so he had a much longer runway to just do podcasting,

 

thing:00:24:23

and his podcast took off because it was unique. It was it was a

 

thing:00:24:28

good show, and John is still doing it. John made so much

 

thing:00:24:31

money he had to move to Puerto Rico to lessen his tax load.

 

thing:00:24:36

Yeah, that's a good problem to have. So keep that in mind. It's

 

thing:00:24:39

not always about the downloads, but it is cool when you realize,

 

thing:00:24:44

hey, people are listening, and the fun part is, new podcasters

 

thing:00:24:51

freak out because they're afraid nobody's listening, and then

 

thing:00:24:54

they freak out because oh my gosh, people are listening. I

 

thing:00:24:58

know once I had a interesting. Situation where I was consulting

 

thing:00:25:02

with a guy and he had a Zoom Podtrack P4 and he had a Rode

 

thing:00:25:07

Podcaster. I think it was the the whatever the the podcaster

 

thing:00:25:12

one, the big one. It's like 600 bucks. And I go, wait, why do

 

thing:00:25:16

you have both?

 

thing:00:25:17

And he said, oh, you said it was cool. So you have to be careful

 

thing:00:25:20

sometimes. I was like, "Dude, you just spent $600 that you

 

thing:00:25:23

didn't need to spend." So be careful sometimes, and realize

 

thing:00:25:27

that people not only are going to listen to you, but they might

 

thing:00:25:30

actually do what you ask. Yeah, yeah, yeah. One last thing, and

 

thing:00:25:34

I say this with love and compassion and with gratitude.

 

thing:00:25:40

Please do not email me your answer. There's a reason I say

 

thing:00:25:44

go to school at podcasting.com/question because

 

thing:00:25:48

then everything ends up in one of two places: either in my

 

thing:00:25:52

MediaFire account, which is what I use to make that upload box,

 

thing:00:25:56

or it's in Fan List. And when you email it to me, it's a third

 

thing:00:26:00

place, and I I cannot stress this enough. My inbox is an

 

thing:00:26:06

absolute disaster. Like I get probably literally 80 emails a

 

thing:00:26:13

day, of which 79 of them are absolute crap, and so it's very

 

thing:00:26:19

easy to get lost in my inbox, so when you answer the question,

 

thing:00:26:25

please again. I appreciate that you're being thorough and you

 

thing:00:26:29

want to make sure I got it. I really do, but especially

 

thing:00:26:32

MediaFire. If you're uploading it there, it actually notifies

 

thing:00:26:35

me when it's there. You can email at me if you if you want

 

thing:00:26:38

to. I just told you not to, but if you want to, you can. Just

 

thing:00:26:42

realize if later you go, hey, you didn't use my answer. I

 

thing:00:26:46

emailed it to you. I will simply say it got lost in my inbox

 

thing:00:26:50

because it's very very likely that it's going to. It's

 

thing:00:26:53

something I'm working on. Just for the record, I block and

 

thing:00:26:58

delete and mark as spam and all this other stuff. So if you've

 

thing:00:27:02

ever emailed me and like, hey, Dave always says answer every

 

thing:00:27:05

email, but he didn't answer mine. Reach out again because

 

thing:00:27:10

literally every day. I'm not exaggerating. When I, you know

 

thing:00:27:13

how tall when you go into Gmail from the top of Gmail to the

 

thing:00:27:18

bottom of Gmail, that first page, I just click on the first

 

thing:00:27:21

one. I read who it's from. I look at the title, and nine

 

thing:00:27:25

times out of 10, I hold down the shift button, click on the

 

thing:00:27:29

bottom, and just say delete because they're all just crap.

 

thing:00:27:33

My favorite, I think, a lot of this is because I've gone to so

 

thing:00:27:36

many events, is my email has been sold. Now, how do I know

 

thing:00:27:42

that? Because at PodPage we get almost on a weekly basis

 

thing:00:27:46

somebody saying, "Do you want to buy the list from this

 

thing:00:27:50

particular show?" And so I think that's how I ended up on so many

 

thing:00:27:54

people's lists, and it just seems like no amount of blocking

 

thing:00:27:58

and spam marking and just every day, there's more, and plus, I

 

thing:00:28:02

know some people said, "Hey, I felt like it was a real podcast

 

thing:00:28:07

when somebody asked to be on my show." That might be a bot, and

 

thing:00:28:12

probably is. Or, and if you want to hear how to pitch yourself to

 

thing:00:28:16

a podcast, go over to pitchapodcast.com. And if you

 

thing:00:28:19

have a good or bad pitch that came your way, be sure to share

 

thing:00:28:23

it over there. Speaking of that, so thanks so much for everybody

 

thing:00:28:28

who sent in their answers. Again, my apologies to Chris and

 

thing:00:28:32

Albert for not getting their answer in here. In the event you

 

thing:00:28:36

didn't hear their answer, and if you need help with your podcast,

 

thing:00:28:41

I can help. I you know look, it's look at the calendar.

 

thing:00:28:44

October's toast, and if you want to have your podcast ready by

 

thing:00:28:49

January, now is the time to start working on it because you

 

thing:00:28:54

want to do a little planning. It's it's it's not really. I

 

thing:00:28:57

mean, I do a podcasting in six weeks course. You can find

 

thing:00:29:00

that@podcastinginsixweeks.com, but it's not really about

 

thing:00:29:04

getting it started quickly. It's about getting it started

 

thing:00:29:08

correctly, and that sometimes takes some thought, takes some

 

thing:00:29:12

research, and I would love to help you do that. I've been

 

thing:00:29:15

doing it for over 20 years, and I would love to see what we

 

thing:00:29:18

could do together. The website again, schoolofpodcasting.com.

 

thing:00:29:23

I'm Dave Jackson. I help podcasters. It's what I do, and

 

thing:00:29:28

I hope to see you on the inside. Until next week, take care. God

 

thing:00:29:32

bless. Class

 

Unknown:00:29:36

is dismissed.

 

David Jackson:00:29:47

And if you're like, I'm not on YouTube, there

 

David Jackson:00:29:49

are things you can learn about your episodic artwork that

 

David Jackson:00:29:53

simply applies to your. Oh, geez, that's that's just

 

David Jackson:00:29:57

horrible. And you can find. At mentalrehearsal.com, except

 

David Jackson:00:30:03

that's not the address, you idiot. It's

 

David Jackson:00:30:06

mentalrehearsal.show.

 

Unknown:00:30:11

Yeah.