Hey, I’m Josh Pies. I am the executive producer here at C47 Films Digital Studios.

And, you know, podcasting is something that I have a conversation about probably 30
or 40 times a day at this point. And so many people want to do a podcast, but
they don’t have a business plan. And I say business plan because I mean business
plan. There’s got to be a purpose behind the podcast.

Now, if you are really enjoying the idea of but doing an entertainment podcast because you wanna spend time with friends doing something fun. It’s like you going out to a bar and doing
karaoke or you having a bonfire, you’re choosing to do a podcast. You can pretty
much ignore this whole video because you’re doing it for a really beautiful reason.
You’re gonna go and spend time with people and celebrate your relationship and have
fun doing it. Kudos, I love that.

But most of our clients, they’re in business and the feeling is that podcasts will move the needle in some way and so they should be doing podcasts. And it’s funny because a lot of my conversations around this start with, “Well, I know nobody’s going to listen at first. There’s not going to be a lot that I’m going to get from it, but I think we need to and someday it’s
going to do something.” Well, actually the truth is that’s kind of true.

Your first video is always your worst video. Your first podcast is your worst podcast. You
start with zero listeners, zero followers, zero subscribers.

You know, your first subscriber is your spouse or maybe your mom, and it’s just kind of an is what it is type of thing, right? You’ve got to start somewhere. And so knowing that going
in is very useful, but you want to plan for early success so that you can stand
through the marathon, you can run that marathon, because I’m telling you it’s not a
race, it’s a marathon. Get ready. And in this context, I can tell you it also gets
a little bit lonely, you know, statistics say that most podcasts make it to about
episode eight before they fall off, The top 1 % of podcasts make it to episode 50.
I’ll say that again. The top 1 % of podcasts make it to episode 50.

The likelihood is that you won’t last in this unless you have the right mindset and understand.
So I want to give you the gift of early ROI. So business, the reason you start a
podcast is going to be multi -layered. And I know it’s going to start with the
belief that you’re going to build a following and that following is going to want
to, you know, probably buy from your business or continue buying from your business.
It’s not wrong, but that’s a distant destination.

Near term, I like setting people up for checking good boxes. And those boxes include getting more social media done, building a YouTube channel, building an audio ecosystem that people can listen to, right? So you want to be in the podcast world. Those are three big boxes you can check.

But I want you to check a sales and business development box. Make sure that when you’re doing this, and this is where the success in the early ROI is, you’re having guests who come on a show of your creation where I have high value in your world. The high value for business to business conversations include referral partners, they include high tier vendor partners, they include great customers, they include industry leaders that you can build more report and relationship with so that you can establish yourself as forward thinking in your industry. It’s that type of guest that you need to have on your show so you can do more time with them.

You can go golfing, sure. It’s not very memorable. You can go have a steak. Okay, fine, better
be a really good steak. Just doing another coffee. None of it’s wrong, but it’s
just not terribly memorable. This will be a memorable experience having them on the
show. And then once you release a feature show and then maybe cut -ups from that
show, there’s a lot of celebration around that relationship moment that keeps coming
up. That’s a really good way to ensure that you have early success moments that
will help drive you through this marathon of a journey.

Sure, eventually you can maybe pay for some advertising to get paid eyeballs coming to your show. Cool. If you’ve got a budget for that, I’m all for it. But the organic side of this
activity needs to be rooted in a business development mindset, in a sales mindset
that’s about relationship and rapport building. And then on top of that, having the
confidence that you’re checking all these digital boxes means you’re doing the right
thing to eventually grow an audience.

And remember, the audience that you need isn’t about going viral. It’s not about having a billion views per video. It’s about having the right listeners who’ll want to engage with you in the right ways over time. So aim for the right thing as well. This marathon may never get you Hollywood credit. It’s really okay. I hope you agree. What you need is a thriving business and it can help you get the attention that will help you thrive at a higher level than you currently are. So that is where you’re gonna find your success in your
podcast journey. Get that mindset on now because you won’t get to episode 50 if you
don’t have that mindset. You will drop out. You will feel very forlorn. I’ve seen
it happen when people don’t have the right mindset which is why I remind them all
the time. You need that pep talk, you know where to find me.

I’m Josh Pies at C47 Digital Studios. If this also feels like you need a partner who can handle the technology and also handle the coaching to keep you on track and get you focused on
building the right presence online, that’s what we do. So reach out to us, fill out
the form here on our website or call us. I’m Josh Pies, you can ask for me by
name. Miller’s actually in studio, he’s recording right now. He’s another great name
to ask for. We’re people who can help you excel on this journey. So let’s have
that conversation.

Remember, mindset’s everything.