Give Them An Excuse Not To Podcast

It's hard for podcasts to go viral, but the viral-spreading of the podcasting bug is undeniable. We love bringing others to our party. But are we being honest with our dazzling praise of the medium?

Hello, and welcome to another Podcast Pontifications with me, Evo Terra.

Recently, I had an odd call with a prospective client and it was all due to a disconnect between expectations. It's not terribly unusual. I mean, people in business have all sorts of misassumptions  and incorrect notions about podcasting. When I'm on early calls with them, I try and get all of that cleared up as quickly as possible in our conversations. We don't want to waste anyone's time with this.

But this call was different almost immediately. The conversation switched from "Is your firm the right firm to help us produce our podcast?" Which I'm used to, but it switched quickly to, "I'm sorry, why would we even want to have a podcast?" Which in and of itself is not all that of an unusual question. And it's one that I'm happy to answer and do answer quite a lot, typically not in this particular scene. But the answer that I give when I get that question, the way it was asked is one that you probably haven't heard all that much.

And my answer to the question of "Why would we even want to have a podcast" is simply this, "Maybe you don't." Maybe you don't. There are almost four million podcasts now. Do we need any more? Well, yes, of course, we need more. C'mon, I'm not that person. Of course, yes, we want more podcasts. We'll have more podcasts. Absolutely. But the reality is that podcasting is not for everyone. And I think we podcasters need to be more honest about that during our conversations with people.

Like when a business, perhaps a business that you work for in your day job, when your business says, hey, let's just have conversations with some of our clients or our prospects, and we'll just shove that out. That sounds easy enough, right? Well, okay. You and I both know that can work. Most of the four million podcasts out there are some variation of that. And a lot of them are actually from either companies or business-minded people. But we also know that those low-effort shows might get a few dozen downloads each episode, and probably then only a single handful of listeners. And those are going to fade out for most businesses because businesses want to see results. And they're going to be dismayed when that happens to them.

Maybe you have some creative friends in your life like visual artists, musicians, poets, actors, comedians, writers, all these people oftentimes are in, we are encouraging them to start a podcast. "You're so creative! You should start a podcast, too!" And that's true and great. We clearly need more people who are creative at their core in the podcasting space, whether they're making amazing shows or whether they're making not-so-amazing shows. I don't care. We need more creatives in this space.

But you and I know that making a podcast is in and of itself a creative endeavor. And the creatives that you and I talk into podcasting or fail to be honest with about podcasting, they're going to have to learn new skills. They're going to have to stretch their existing skills, and all of that takes time and energy away from their primary creative outlet. Is that going to work for them long-term? I don't know.

Subject matter experts, or perhaps people in your life who are just all-around super smart people are often told, "You should start a podcast!" And again, yes, they should start a podcast. There is plenty of appetite in the podcast listener space for knowledge-based content. But again, podcasting, you and I know, isn't the same as putting together a keynote presentation or writing a research paper, or even doing interviews for radio, TV, and other podcasts. They're similar, but content creation - we have to remember that those subject matter experts aren't subject matter experts in podcasting.

And even though you and I, their friends, make it look really easy, we know it's not easy. And for many, they're going to find this as a new discipline that they really struggle to master.

So the next time your employer, co-worker, creative friend, super-smart person in your life, next time they ask you about podcasting, be every bit as honest as you are encouraging because nothing sours a working relationship, or even a friendship for that matter, like missed expectations.

So this, by the way, was the penultimate episode of Podcast Pontifications Season Three. I'll do one more tomorrow and then I'm on break until Season Four kicks up again in July of 2021. In the meantime, please be sure you are subscribed to Podcast Pontifications In Your Inbox. That's the newsletter that I send out. I'm trying out some new ideas and they're going to be amongst the first to know, subscribers of PPIYI.

So too will be those who have gone to buybuymeacoffee.com/EvoTerra and purchased a virtual coffee for me. I will also let them know the score early.

That's it. I shall be back tomorrow with yet another Podcast Pontifications.

Cheers!