Balancing Podcast Metrics and Meaningful Success

Transcript

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Ask the Podcast Coach for September 7th 2024.

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Let's get ready to podcast.

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There it is.

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It's that music.

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That means, hey, it's Saturday morning.

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It's time for Ask the Podcast Coach, where you get your podcast questions answered live.

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I'm Dave Jackson from theschoolofpodcastingcom and joining me right over there, the one and only jim cullison from the average guy dot tv.

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Jim, how's it going, buddy?

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greetings, dave.

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Happy saturday morning to you.

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I'll apologize in advance.

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It's roof replacement saturday for me.

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I have folks on my roof right now banging and nailing and scraping, yes, so it's a big man.

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I am a little ways away from them and hopefully it's fairly quiet, but it is that it was supposed to be done.

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Yesterday I was like, oh great, and they're like, I know Saturday I'm like Saturday morning's not great for me, but they don't care.

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They're doing it today.

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Well, what's amazing is how fast that'll get done.

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You sit there and boom.

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All of a sudden you hear this pop, pop, pop, pop, pop.

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And then you're like, okay, that was you know, it's it.

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Yeah, that's the good news, it goes pretty fast yeah.

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Yeah, well, you know the.

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You know what goes good with roofing, there's no transition here A good old, steaming hot cup of Java, and that that Java is brought to you by our good friend Mark over at and Dave is hoping he changed the PDF here.

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Our good friend Mark, yes, he did.

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Over at podcastbrandingco.

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The beautiful thing of Mark is not only is he an award-winning graphic artist and he makes things just look so pretty, is he's also a podcaster.

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So that whole thing where you have to explain it's kind of like an internet radio show.

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Yeah, you don't have to do that with Mark.

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And I know there are things like Fiverr, but you're not going to have a guy on Fiverr sit down with you one-on-one.

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You're not going to have a guy on Fiverr listen to your show.

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He's going to sit down and ask you like, what's the goal of the show?

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He just really wants your brand to be in alignment with your content so that you get maximum impact.

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And it's not just artwork.

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It could be a full website, it could be a PDF, it could be a business card, anything that you're going to put in front of your audience.

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Mark is going to make it look amazing because you got to remember.

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They are going to see you before they hear you, and you don't want your first impression to be something that looked like it was done in crayon.

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You want it to look great.

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So when you're ready to look great, there's only one place to go, and that is, of course, podcastbrandingco and, of course, big thanks to our good friend dan leFebvre over there, based on a true story based on a truestorypodcastcom.

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This week, the movies Rome, geronimo, an American Legend and the Great Northfield Minnesota Raid, which I've never heard of before.

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You can check those out.

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Always great content.

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Dan always does a great job.

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You can check those out today.

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And, by the way, the single movie based on a true story is the Great Fire, which it looks like it's covering the great fire of Chicago.

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You can check those out today, based on a truestorypodcastcom.

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Dan, thanks for your sponsorship.

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You know, it's interesting how words get branded into your head, because as soon as you said fire, I heard butthead go fire.

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I just it's like exactly All right, well, we're going to go, he said.

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But and we're going to go over to last week.

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Our buddy Ralph from askralphpodcastcom it's a Christian finance show he says hey, for next week.

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The question should be how do we change our mindset and stop worrying about downloads?

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Here's the thing.

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If you're not trying to get sponsors, well then downloads.

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That's all I'm saying.

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It really is.

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It's a matter of why do you want downloads?

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Now, part of it is your ego, right, I want to stand on the hill and listen to me, right, I get that, but we can really get for me the stat, if you.

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I just saw somebody in Reddit this morning, in fact, let me throw that up here, if I can find it.

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But people obsess over some of the strangest stuff that I'm just like wait a minute.

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And I guess the one thing is just again going back to your why.

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Why are you doing this?

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And if the answer is, you know, I want to get sponsors, then okay, pay attention to downloads, and if not, again it just no, just, I'm not good, see, here's the thing is.

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If I say the naughty, let's find out.

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Jim, if I say, did you hear me?

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Just say the f word no, oh good.

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No, so I can.

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Actually, it's working all right, it's supposed to leave yourself out yeah, so yeah, I jim thoughts.

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How do you get out of the like obsessing over downloads?

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well, okay, but first of all, I don't think throwing them out is the right answer.

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Like they're important.

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They're an important stat they are.

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It gives you a good indication of where you're at.

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But I guess it depends on what your goal is with that.

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I mean, if your goal is to have monetization using the current you know the models that we have for ad revenue dynamic ad insertion, let me say it that way that we have for ad revenue, dynamic ad insertion, let me say it that way you're going to have a lot of downloads and so if you're going that way and you have to have lots of downloads, your those download stats are important from the sense that, okay, if you're not getting a lot of downloads, you're not getting a lot of revenue.

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So in that case they do matter.

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But you may be in a situation and I think they're way more important when we compare them month over month or maybe week over week.

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I think maybe that's a little too granular, but month over month or quarter over quarter, to kind of see how are we doing, where are we at Now?

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It's just one stat, right, so don't get it's not the only stat that you should be following.

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There's lots of other things you could be doing from both your website.

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You know if you've got Google AdSense on your website and you're tracking things that way, or if you've got affiliate programs, and what kind of clicks are you getting through.

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I mean, our friends at Amazon do a really nice job.

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If you're an Amazon affiliate, they do a really nice job of tracking clicks, and conversions is some of the things that go on over there.

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So that's could be another stat.

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So I don't want to.

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I wouldn't say throw out download stats altogether.

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I think that's too.

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I think that's too radical, right, I think that's like and I get why some people do that.

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They get frustrated and they're like well, I don't want this to matter.

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Well, it does matter.

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Sorry, it's a stat that, but use it as a suite or use it as one, one stat in a suite of stats that you're using.

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But, dave, the overarching question on this always is what am?

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Why am I doing what I'm doing?

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What am I trying to achieve on this thing?

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And then making sure the stats or whatever you're doing with that, whatever you're measuring, are lining up to the goals of what you're trying to do with it.

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Everybody's a little bit different.

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I'm a little hesitant.

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We do this as podcast coaches.

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Sometimes, where we're like, we say words like always, and you should never Like stop saying those things, because sometimes they do matter, sometimes they don't.

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Rather, ask the questions what are you trying to achieve?

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That should be the very first question.

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And listen, if you're just having fun, yeah, maybe you don't have to look at your download stats and it doesn't matter, and maybe in that case, if that is your goal, you never have to worry about it.

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So that question I think that question, dave, is the most important one is why are we doing what we're doing, friends?

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Here's another exercise you can do add two zeros.

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And what I mean by that is let's say you're getting, I don't know, 800 downloads.

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Okay, add two zeros.

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Ooh, now I have to do math.

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In my head that would be 80,000,.

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All right, if it was 800, 8,000, 80,000.

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Yeah, okay, so you have 80,000 downloads.

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That's actually a ton more, but just add more numbers.

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So let's say I have a hundred downloads and now you have a thousand.

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Okay, what are you going to do with those?

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So what, like, like, what's the end thing?

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And you're like I don't know, and if you go, I guess I could get sponsors.

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Well, okay, you know my thoughts.

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It's just when it comes to sponsors, it's not the best way to make money with your podcast.

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Enjoy your $37.50 for that episode.

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And I'm not anti-sponsor because DR brings up a good point.

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Where'd she go About?

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What if you are a smaller show and you can then charge more money?

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Smaller show and you can then charge more money because I've got, you know, men who are 50 that are paralyzed from the waist down.

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Okay, you know, now I can charge cause you've got a product for that person, whatever it is.

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Yeah, I'm, I always.

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I'm not anti-advertising.

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I sure sound like it.

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I've just, I hate when people go.

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I'm starting a podcast and I want to get ads because I want to quit my day job and I'm like that is a long road to go.

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And then, yes, jody says I think it's more about knowing or having some idea whether or not people are resonating with your content.

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Yep, that's it.

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And Chris said the same thing.

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It's about kind of going.

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Are we headed in the right way?

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And I get that.

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And look, I realize when you first start your podcast, you are checking stats on an hourly basis.

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Ooh, I'm up to 14.

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And I get that because you just want to make sure it's working and things like that.

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But yeah, jody says, get very specific sponsors who are assigned very closely with their show and its audience.

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And that has nothing to do with downloads either.

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Really, it's about having a passionate audience.

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Yeah, that's when you have a niche audience and you're not doing you know better help.

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I don't know.

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You know what I mean.

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This is.

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This one makes me scratch my head.

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Randy says my media host does not offer stats by default.

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What are we paying them for?

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Again, you have to opt in for OP3 stats, which is fine.

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I don't look at them very often.

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So I just think it's odd.

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I think he's using RSS Blue, but now, on the other hand, rss Blue makes it really easy because he's doing the M2H2Musiccom show.

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That's Randy Black, and if you want to do a music show with the streaming sats and the switching wallets and all that 2.0 stuff, you know, and in that case you probably don't care about downloads.

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You're watching your sats income, yeah.

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And then, talking about ego, chris says I'm in the top 0.5% on listen notes.

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No one cares ever.

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Yeah, that's when I hate that stat.

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When I hear somebody go, you know, oh coming.

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You know I'm interviewing Jim Collison today.

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He's a top 0.5% podcaster.

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That's when I tend to go.

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But there's a time when I do use ListenNotes.

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I don't do this but I go.

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Okay, that would work because we know ListenNotes measures like millions of podcasts, of which 70% are dead.

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So congratulations, you beat that WordPress podcast from you know 19,.

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You know whatever 2002.

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But if somebody said, where can I see which shows are bigger?

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Like I only want to appear on big shows, which, right there, makes me think you have an attitude maybe problem.

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Like I just I only want to appear on the biggest shows.

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But if that would be a way, as skewed as their measurement is, it is consistent and so, in theory, a 0.5 top podcaster would have a bigger audience on listen notes than one that's in the top 15% or something like that.

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So it's, but to me I'm just like I will go.

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I don't look at the size of the audience.

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The size of the audience, I look does that fit my topic?

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Because I'd rather reach 10 people who are thinking about doing a podcast than be on a show with 100 listeners and they're talking about fish food.

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I'm like, yeah, there might be one person in here that does that.

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I want to share one thing on the screen here real quick.

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This guy just talk about getting sidetracked.

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This guy on Reddit what is your subscriber to download ratio?

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I'm hoping to compare metrics on what an average percentage of subs meaning subscribers, to download an episode is.

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I recently started podcasting in May Remember how we talked about new people tend to get a little upset on this in May and I'm tracking what percentage of my subscriber downloads an episode the percentage of my subscribers download an episode.

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Okay, the data source I'm using is Buzzsprout, subscribers, apple and Spotify.

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The calculation is I get my 30-day download numbers from Buzzsprout.

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I calculate my average daily subscribers, ads, by adding up each daily's individual subscriber count and dividing by 30.

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For example, if I have three days worth of subscriber data, totaling 45 subscriber, then my average daily subscriber whatever ADS stood for, yes, average daily subscribers would be 15, to which I basically.

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I'm not even going to read the rest of this, I just told him, dude, there's a better way to do this, and that's if the goal is.

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I'm trying to see if people like my content.

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The number one way ask your audience.

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Just like hey, now, granted, a lot of times you ask your audience and you just get crickets.

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But just look at average completion rate.

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Because when I saw that, my brain hurt just looking at it.

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I was like and then you take this, divide it by two and then multiply it by pi, and I was like wait, this is getting way, way too nerdy even for me.

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And I'm like look, I love math, but I was like that just sounds like the time spent figuring out your average DS could just be spent hanging out with your potential audience and doing that.

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So that to me was just like focusing on downloads, squared to throw in a math joke, I was just yeah.

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Anyway, jim, I look like.

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I yeah, no, you're fine, you're getting some value out of those sound effects today.

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I really like it.

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I really like it.

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You know we've spent the last year talking a lot about value for value, right, and that always comes in the terms I shouldn't say always, because I just said we shouldn't say words like that.

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Oftentimes that comes in the terms of this value for value where you're getting paid by the listener, right, we think about in those terms.

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But I think you can also think in value for value in terms of your advertiser and when you're listen, when you're giving your advertiser value in your podcast and they're seeing that value in through purchases or through engagement on their site.

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I mean, this is why discount codes work.

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This is why, you know, put in the code here at checkout or let them know.

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You heard us here.

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That's why those things matter right.

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That's why those things matter right.

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It's because an advertiser who spends $50 with you and makes $500 is going to say yes to advertising all the time.

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They're never going to stop right?

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Nobody turns away a 10-time value, right, and even a two-times value is a great return on their investment right now.

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So make sure if you have advertisers, dave, I see this all the time.

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I see podcasters treating their ads like trash, like Dave Clarke yeah, jim Collison, sorry I got to do another ad.

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Dave Clarke, no, not sorry.

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These advertisers are partners with you right Now.

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If you're in the review space, if you're in that space of that influencer space, you got to be careful in that space on how you do this right, your advertisers and then talking about the content and stuff they're giving you.

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That's a whole other conversation, right, but I see podcasters trashing there or just not giving their advertisers value and then wonder why their advertisers walk away.

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You know we complain for a lot of years.

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Leo Laporte, who would do three-minute?

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You know he'd sell a 30-minute spot and he'd do three minutes on it.

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He would give them great value.

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The odds are they.

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That's, in a lot of ways, that's why they kept coming back.

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Now some of them would go for a while and they drop off.

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Advertisers are not going to do it forever.

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Eventually they're going to meet everybody in the space.

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It doesn't, sometimes it doesn't pay to keep going forever.

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Right, you do it for a while, you step out, you come back in.

00:16:15.193 --> 00:16:22.860
But I think that value for value conversation also needs to play in and how are you treating your advertisers?

00:16:22.860 --> 00:16:24.162
Are you giving them value?

00:16:24.162 --> 00:16:27.644
And you should ask them the question what are you see?

00:16:27.644 --> 00:16:31.586
Am I doing the job that you're paying me to do?

00:16:31.586 --> 00:16:35.169
Because that, as a commercial, that's what they're doing.

00:16:35.169 --> 00:16:37.471
They're paying you to represent them, right?

00:16:37.471 --> 00:16:40.134
That's part of the advertising gig that we're in here.

00:16:40.134 --> 00:16:42.154
Are you representing them well?

00:16:42.154 --> 00:16:45.721
Are you doing a good job that they're feeling value out of that?

00:16:45.721 --> 00:16:54.552
Listen, I know that that's not the most popular opinion, because some of you have a very negative opinion of ads playing on shows, but it's a.

00:16:54.552 --> 00:16:56.720
It's another value for value proposition.

00:16:56.980 --> 00:17:10.358
Yeah, I would say, and you have to be careful when you get into the Patreons, the supercast, because that's where you're like well, if you sign up on Supercast, then you don't have to hear those ads and it just sounds like ads and you're like.

00:17:10.358 --> 00:17:13.166
Meanwhile the guy's like didn't I just give you a couple hundred bucks?

00:17:13.166 --> 00:17:14.912
Like what's the deal on that?

00:17:14.912 --> 00:17:17.623
Jim Harreld says I'll include myself in this.

00:17:17.623 --> 00:17:23.471
I think almost anyone who gets into podcasting really has a little bit of a look at me syndrome.

00:17:23.471 --> 00:17:25.834
I know, I know I have it.

00:17:25.834 --> 00:17:28.864
That is, if we're all being honest with ourselves, absolutely.

00:17:28.864 --> 00:17:33.182
And then he says the great thing, the key is not to be obsessed.

00:17:33.182 --> 00:17:35.490
And I think that's it with downloads as well.

00:17:35.490 --> 00:17:41.667
Uncle Marv says Supercast has a unique listener stat, which Jody then said yep, so does Captivate.

00:17:41.667 --> 00:17:42.931
So that comes in.

00:17:42.931 --> 00:17:46.261
And, jim, here's the beautiful news.

00:17:46.261 --> 00:17:50.070
I'm going to put this on my business card we're in the top 2.5% on ListenNotes.

00:17:51.034 --> 00:17:52.577
So you know, you can.

00:17:54.222 --> 00:17:55.705
I am beating that show about.

00:17:55.705 --> 00:17:59.532
You know emus from 2010 that had four episodes.

00:17:59.532 --> 00:18:01.261
Congratulations on that.

00:18:01.261 --> 00:18:03.086
Tom says the ads are content.

00:18:03.086 --> 00:18:07.342
If you care about your content, you care about your ads equally.

00:18:07.342 --> 00:18:10.450
Or are you just respecting audience and advisor?

00:18:10.450 --> 00:18:11.432
Here's a novel idea.

00:18:11.432 --> 00:18:15.368
Can you go into your Apple podcast and see where people are skipping the ads?

00:18:15.368 --> 00:18:16.771
Here's a solution to that.

00:18:16.771 --> 00:18:18.101
Do better ads.

00:18:18.101 --> 00:18:20.565
You know what I mean.

00:18:20.565 --> 00:18:21.486
I agree.

00:18:21.486 --> 00:18:22.768
Tom makes a great point.

00:18:22.768 --> 00:18:23.849
People go.

00:18:23.849 --> 00:18:28.236
Well, if I add ads to my show, I'm going to lose my listeners.

00:18:28.236 --> 00:18:30.401
And he's like BS man, it's like.

00:18:30.401 --> 00:18:36.834
That's where you're like no, because if one ad lost your listener, they really weren't that.

00:18:38.101 --> 00:18:42.651
When I was a musician, I would partner with bands that played the same stuff.

00:18:42.651 --> 00:18:46.703
We did our competition and people were like well, why are you like?

00:18:46.703 --> 00:18:50.313
We'd bring them up on stage when we were playing if they had a night off.

00:18:50.313 --> 00:18:54.790
And likewise, if we walked in because we had a Friday off and they were playing, yeah, we're going to bring up the Sugar Daddies.

00:18:54.790 --> 00:18:55.392
All right, here we go.

00:18:56.192 --> 00:18:59.993
And people would say, well, aren't you afraid that, like, people are going to go see that band instead of you?

00:18:59.993 --> 00:19:05.435
If you're both playing some night, I'm like, hey, if they're going to see them, we're not doing our job, then we're not.

00:19:05.435 --> 00:19:07.195
We need to be more entertaining than them.

00:19:07.195 --> 00:19:15.221
And of course, the look at me factor was like, ah, we, you know, we like these guys, but we kind of think we're better and so make your ads better.

00:19:15.221 --> 00:19:21.406
I know I'm working on that, but I have a long way to go on making ads that people you know.

00:19:21.866 --> 00:19:26.412
Oh, I think it's Pod Save the Queen or Pod Something on the Left, whatever this is.

00:19:26.412 --> 00:19:29.054
It was Obama's old speechwriters do a show.

00:19:29.054 --> 00:19:30.355
I think it's Pod Save America.

00:19:30.355 --> 00:19:39.161
Yeah, something Saving Something, pod, yeah.

00:19:39.161 --> 00:19:44.165
But their ads were so entertaining that when they went live and they're selling out thousands of seats in a theater, people are like, hey, come on, man do Blue Apron.

00:19:44.165 --> 00:19:47.429
And I'm like, no, no, you guys paid $30 for the ticket, we're not doing ads.

00:19:47.429 --> 00:19:49.109
Come on HelloFresh.

00:19:49.109 --> 00:19:52.153
And they're like, okay, I guess we're doing an ad.

00:19:52.153 --> 00:19:55.715
So it was really because they did them in an entertaining way.

00:19:55.715 --> 00:20:05.721
Just don't be Tom Segura.

00:20:05.741 --> 00:20:08.411
He went a little too far with the McDonald's ads and started talking about sex toys, and McDonald's did not appreciate that.

00:20:08.411 --> 00:20:09.213
Yeah, so make them yourself.

00:20:09.213 --> 00:20:11.842
You don't want to mix metaphors in your ads, you know, you gotta be really.

00:20:11.842 --> 00:20:17.083
You know, Dave, you said don't be obsessed and I actually I mean, I'm going to disagree with you a little bit.

00:20:17.083 --> 00:20:31.886
I think you should listen about your podcasting, about all the things that you do be obsessed Like, I think sometimes we, you know, we came off this stats conversation saying you know, don't obsess about your stats.

00:20:32.528 --> 00:20:38.801
If it drives you to success, to be a better podcaster by obsessing about your stats, for God's sakes.

00:20:38.801 --> 00:20:49.769
Obsess about your stats, Like whatever makes you better, right, Even if it makes you a little uncomfortable, which is not a bad thing and what we're doing here.

00:20:49.769 --> 00:20:53.790
But whatever makes you better at what you do with your craft, do it.

00:20:53.790 --> 00:20:58.013
If being obsessed about I mean in a healthy way, right?

00:20:58.013 --> 00:21:03.017
I'm not encouraging anyone to stop eating or to not sleep or never shower or any of those kinds of things.

00:21:03.017 --> 00:21:04.077
That's not what I'm talking about here.

00:21:04.077 --> 00:21:06.898
Or to not sleep or never shower or any of those kinds of things.

00:21:06.898 --> 00:21:07.720
That's not what I'm talking about here.

00:21:09.579 --> 00:21:16.330
But I do think our podcasts are better when we're a little obsessed about them and when we care about them and when we want them to be better and when we care about them.

00:21:16.330 --> 00:21:23.026
So I don't want people to hear like, oh, laissez-faire, whatever, you can just kind of do this on halftime.

00:21:23.026 --> 00:21:37.951
No, no, None of these things happen, None of the successful, however you want to see that in life, that doesn't happen by people who are just like, yeah, I'll do it for an hour on Saturday.

00:21:37.951 --> 00:21:41.143
They're obsessed about it.

00:21:41.143 --> 00:21:44.809
And be a little obsessed, I guess, is what I'm saying.

00:21:44.809 --> 00:21:45.612
Be a little obsessed.

00:21:46.133 --> 00:21:51.612
Yeah, that's true, because you, when you that kind of goes in with the whole, you need to have passion for your topic.

00:21:51.612 --> 00:21:55.391
And if you have passion for your topic then that's going to naturally filter into.

00:21:55.391 --> 00:22:05.661
But, like the guy that was doing math to figure out the average number of subscribers on Tuesday, if there's a full moon, that's maybe a little obsessed, that's a little crazy.

00:22:05.721 --> 00:22:07.464
Well, that's listen, that's obnoxious.

00:22:07.464 --> 00:22:12.441
But the checking your stats even okay, like even on a daily basis.

00:22:12.441 --> 00:22:39.294
If you're checking them daily and that is giving you some drive to make better show notes or it's giving you drive to get better guests or that's driving you to have better content or to maybe practice your ad reads right or to contact a listener, if that daily stat rhythm is giving you the motivation to do something, for God's sakes, check your stats every day.

00:22:39.294 --> 00:22:43.717
If it's motivating you to do something, do it Now.

00:22:43.717 --> 00:22:48.619
If you're checking your stats and then you're getting you're like, oh, I'm worthless and I can't do anything.

00:22:48.619 --> 00:23:04.536
And then if it's disabling you from doing any of those kinds of things, if it's stopping you, or if you're spending all the time that you have checking stats and not doing anything else, then stop checking your stats.

00:23:04.536 --> 00:23:05.217
It's not that hard.

00:23:05.460 --> 00:23:10.011
That's where I say you cross the line when you're spending hours on your stats.

00:23:10.119 --> 00:23:10.642
I'm like no.

00:23:10.642 --> 00:23:13.340
Spend hours making your content, tom says.

00:23:13.340 --> 00:23:16.691
By the way, if you haven't bought Tom's book, the audience is listening.

00:23:16.691 --> 00:23:17.701
I'm here to tell you.

00:23:17.701 --> 00:23:20.127
It's required reading for every podcaster.

00:23:20.127 --> 00:23:20.729
It's amazing.

00:23:20.729 --> 00:23:22.011
Make your ads better.

00:23:22.011 --> 00:23:23.545
This is the truth.

00:23:23.545 --> 00:23:25.467
Take agency in your show.

00:23:25.467 --> 00:23:32.181
If people drop out of your show on a host-read ad, they're dropping out on you because you didn't provide quality.

00:23:32.181 --> 00:23:36.770
Amen, my brother, it really is tricky Daniel's in the house here.

00:23:37.152 --> 00:23:44.944
I remember when the New Media Expo purchased the podcast awards and the host started doing a parody of a live ad read during the ceremony.

00:23:44.944 --> 00:23:48.266
But then I was horrified to realize it wasn't a parody.

00:23:48.266 --> 00:23:49.769
I remember that vaguely.

00:23:49.769 --> 00:23:50.471
I remember they were.

00:23:50.471 --> 00:23:52.384
I think it was MeUndies, if I remember right.

00:23:52.384 --> 00:23:54.911
But yeah, they started sticking ads in.

00:23:54.911 --> 00:23:57.103
You know, yeah, you guys are funny.

00:23:57.103 --> 00:23:57.644
Here we go.

00:23:57.644 --> 00:24:04.071
For the folks that obsess and don't want to obsess, I wonder if the hosting platform can turn those numbers off.

00:24:04.071 --> 00:24:05.818
Nope, so you don't see them.

00:24:05.818 --> 00:24:06.441
That'd be nice.

00:24:06.441 --> 00:24:09.990
I remember a developer created a code to turn off unsubscribe.

00:24:09.990 --> 00:24:11.192
Yeah, it's just.

00:24:11.192 --> 00:24:14.770
This is where I'm going to tie this into football.

00:24:14.770 --> 00:24:17.400
So it sounds like I am taking a tangent.

00:24:17.400 --> 00:24:18.281
But here's the thing.

00:24:19.644 --> 00:24:22.451
When I live in Ohio, the Cleveland Browns moved away.

00:24:22.451 --> 00:24:26.230
It was some of the best years of my life because I didn't have to worry about football.

00:24:26.230 --> 00:24:30.525
And football started this Thursday in America and I watched the first game.

00:24:30.525 --> 00:24:36.685
It was a really good game and you wondered who was going to win, because there's that whole storytelling thing about oh I wonder what's going to happen next.

00:24:36.685 --> 00:24:39.921
Sports has that built in, and if it's a close game you watch.

00:24:39.921 --> 00:24:44.284
And then the NFL is the only one because it's a gazillion.

00:24:44.284 --> 00:24:50.128
I would love to know how much of the gross national product of America is the NFL?

00:24:50.128 --> 00:24:53.211
It's insane, but they've now made it.

00:24:53.211 --> 00:24:55.212
They're making it hard to get their content.

00:24:55.212 --> 00:25:10.446
So I actually spent $7 last night to watch a game that was only available on Peacock and I felt dirty afterwards, like I needed a shower, like they made me do something I didn't want to do, and then I didn't even watch the game because I was on the phone for most of it.

00:25:10.559 --> 00:25:15.410
But it's one of those things where I'm feeling myself getting sucked in right.

00:25:15.410 --> 00:25:28.729
I'm like, hey, if I start watching this now and then, because it is fun, if you watch the whole season, and now you know the whole story of the season and, oh my gosh, I was there when they were, you know, oh and four, and now look at them, they're in the playoffs.

00:25:28.729 --> 00:25:34.847
I I get that, but in the grand scheme of, what do you want to do with your life?

00:25:34.847 --> 00:25:43.941
Football, yes, it's uh, an escape, and sometimes we need that and this, but is it going to help me grow my podcast, which one's more important right now?

00:25:43.941 --> 00:25:52.075
An escape and relaxation, or growing my podcast, or I don't know, spending time with your kids or, you know, your spouse, or things like that.

00:25:52.075 --> 00:26:07.767
But I'm just like, yeah, in the grand scheme of things, football shouldn't be a high priority for me right now, and yet I feel my and I know why I'm getting sucked in, because there's lots of stories, you know, is Taylor going to be there that whole nine yards?

00:26:08.227 --> 00:26:14.372
So realize, sometimes bringing it back then to podcasting is staring at your stats.

00:26:14.372 --> 00:26:15.553
Yes, there is definitely.

00:26:15.553 --> 00:26:24.770
There's always a benefit of that because you can see is this working or not and, as Jim said, if you see that it's not working, be ready for that.

00:26:24.770 --> 00:26:27.885
Same thing when you see how far people are listening to your show.

00:26:27.885 --> 00:26:34.428
I was working with someone and their numbers were not great and when they saw that stat, they're like well, what does that mean?

00:26:34.428 --> 00:26:40.613
I'm like it means most people are tuning out fairly quickly, you know, and you have to be ready for that.

00:26:40.613 --> 00:26:44.269
But for me that's as much as you hate to get that information.

00:26:44.269 --> 00:26:49.347
At least you know where you're starting from, and in some cases you can only go up from here.

00:26:49.989 --> 00:26:55.067
So just kind of step out of yourself and go am I getting sucked in?

00:26:55.067 --> 00:26:56.450
Cause I noticed.

00:26:56.450 --> 00:26:57.980
I'm like, oh, I'm getting sucked into football.

00:26:57.980 --> 00:26:58.441
Look at this.

00:26:58.441 --> 00:27:03.589
We're only two days in and you know the Browns game is on Sunday and they're playing the Cowboys.

00:27:03.589 --> 00:27:08.404
And so the one thing I do, just to the whole sports thing, never watch it live.

00:27:08.404 --> 00:27:09.644
And I was watching it live.

00:27:09.644 --> 00:27:12.469
Oh, because you can watch a football game in about 15 minutes.

00:27:12.469 --> 00:27:13.082
We need to skip.

00:27:13.082 --> 00:27:14.106
Next play skip.

00:27:14.106 --> 00:27:17.743
So I was like, not only am I watching football, but I was watching it live.

00:27:17.743 --> 00:27:20.807
And I was like, no, just be careful, especially with the obsession.

00:27:21.429 --> 00:27:26.602
Yeah, with the obsession.

00:27:26.602 --> 00:27:27.023
Yeah, dr, just it can.

00:27:27.023 --> 00:27:27.526
It could be overwhelmed.

00:27:27.526 --> 00:27:28.048
Well, dave, but in in.

00:27:28.048 --> 00:27:36.810
There could be a case, though, where the folks that you're hanging out with, or even in your podcast, were knowing that football information could actually be beneficial yeah, that's right.

00:27:36.810 --> 00:27:45.976
So again, not to bash the nfl, by the way, the answer to your question, the us gdp last year or 2022, 25 trillion dollars.

00:27:45.976 --> 00:27:50.826
Okay, the nfl's revenue, yeah, 25 billion dollars.

00:27:50.826 --> 00:27:55.134
A bill a trillion is a trillion a thousand million million.

00:27:55.855 --> 00:27:58.826
No, you're right, billions, yeah yeah it's a lot of money.

00:27:58.826 --> 00:27:59.647
Let's not do the math.

00:28:00.009 --> 00:28:08.388
It's yeah, it's a lot, but it's not as much as you think, right, it's one of those kinds of things you're like, yeah, 20, it's a lot, but it's not as much as you think, right, it's one of those kinds of things you're like, yeah, 20 billion, that's a lot, but 25 trillion, that's a lot more too.

00:28:08.388 --> 00:28:11.664
Yeah, I think like don't to your point.

00:28:11.664 --> 00:28:16.713
I mean be does that mean you need to as a podcaster?

00:28:16.713 --> 00:28:21.684
Does that mean you need, I need to just write off the NFL or write off sports Because I don't have time for that stuff?

00:28:21.684 --> 00:28:25.517
Well, maybe, but in most cases, like you said, figure out a way.

00:28:25.517 --> 00:28:30.347
You might need it for life just to have conversations at work, right, Whatever.

00:28:31.088 --> 00:28:32.692
Find a way to make that reasonable.

00:28:32.692 --> 00:28:46.130
You know, for you, like you said, in this particular case, youtube has the actual recaps of every game that you can watch, right, and you can go in there and watch those shows, watch the best of those.

00:28:46.130 --> 00:28:48.986
It's even easier than recording it and fast-forwarding it.

00:28:48.986 --> 00:28:53.119
You can just watch the best of it in 10 minutes or 15 or 20 minutes, something like that.

00:28:53.119 --> 00:28:56.747
So figure out what works for you in that, but be reasonable.

00:28:56.747 --> 00:29:07.001

Balancing Podcast Metrics and Meaningful Success

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Balancing Podcast Metrics and Meaningful Success

Daily Podcast Tips - Grow Your Show!

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