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3-Part Blueprint to Launch a Successful Podcast

MYP - How to Launch a Podcast

In this episode, Hector shares the blueprint for launching a podcast. Ready to launch one? Make it exceptionally good & listen to the 3 key steps you’ll need to take in launching a podcast that drives activity, attention, and a whole lot of love. 


Topics Covered 

  • 2:49 - First Step; record at least 10 episodes before the launch. 
  • 3:50 - Reasons why recording dropping 5 episodes is important. 
  • 7:24 - Second Step; get 100 advanced listeners. 
  • 8:46 - How advanced listeners trigger an algorithm that you’ll need. 
  • 9:43 - Third Step; connect actively with people. 
  • 10:28 - How to efficiently connect. 

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Transcript
Hector:

M Y P fam what's going on.

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My name is Hector Sanon and I am your host and I get way too geeked up about

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creating amazing podcasts that can fuel your lifestyle and your business.

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. I've been producing and promoting podcasts for over half a decade now.

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And this show is to help you learn all the things that do and do not

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work when it comes to marketing and monetizing your podcast.

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And on today's episode, we're gonna talk about how to relaunch a podcast,

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or we're gonna talk about how to launch a podcast, or maybe you're gonna

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launch a new season, or you just want to get some boosts in your downloads.

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We're gonna talk about what you can do to get your show.

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Maybe on the charts, maybe see a little increase in your audience.

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And obviously get some momentum behind your show.

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And this episode came up because I was actually talking with a

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few new prospects and some, some new clients that are coming on.

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And one of the things that we do is help clients get their show off the ground.

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And so a lot of people, they have an idea, they have a message, they

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have this general concept of a show, but then putting all of the pieces

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together is a little bit of a challenge.

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And so what we really help people do is to know what are all the

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things that need to get done?

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What are all the things that need to get created?

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And then obviously, go out there and get them done as well.

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and so I wrote a LinkedIn post and a few tweets about this that

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seemed to resonate with people.

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And

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so I'm gonna give you the three part blueprint to launch a successful podcast.

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And the first part is to have 10 episodes recorded before you launch.

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The second thing to do is to have a hundred pre listeners, a hundred

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listeners, ready to listen at drop

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and the third is to connect with at least a thousand people in your community.

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So we're gonna get into each of these numbers, but it's pretty simple.

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Have 10 episodes, A hundred advanced listeners and connecting with a

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thousand people in your audience.

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So I think it kind of goes without saying, but a lot of people.

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Miss this.

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And I mean, I think the average podcast lasts what seven, eight

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episodes, something like that.

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And I think that happens because a lot of people don't anticipate the work

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that comes with sustaining a show.

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It's a lot, and it's a grind to put out a show week after week after week.

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And so that's why we always encourage people to get help because it can really.

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People to focus on what the things that they actually love to do,

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which is oftentimes being the host, connecting with guests, working

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on, you know, creating an impact.

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And so if you have a little bit of a plan, obviously what it's gonna do is it's

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gonna increase your chance of success.

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But what it's also gonna do is it's gonna give you a runway, ? It's

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gonna give you a timeline on which you can expect things to.

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That's I think is the biggest thing is a lot of people don't

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realize how long or short it takes to actually put a show together.

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But our first recommendation is to have at least 10 episodes recorded

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before you either launch the podcast before you relaunch a podcast or

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before you relaunch a new season.

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And the reason that we recommend 10 is specifically if you're

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launching a podcast, we like to drop five episodes at launch.

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And so on the first day that.

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Well, let's back up.

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You might put out a trailer early on , just to get your show up on apple or

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Spotify, and to have your feed up there.

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And that allows you to be able to drop your episodes , as soon as you want,

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but on your official launch day, we like, we really like to drop at least

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five episodes, because what it does is it allows the listener to really binge

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if they want to, if they want to go and.

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You know, five hours listening to it or spending the whole weekend.

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We like to launch podcasts on Fridays and drop five episodes that Friday.

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And over the weekend, it'll give people time to actually go through

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and listen to all of those episodes.

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Now, what that does is that does a couple of things.

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The first thing that it does is it creates a little bit of

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a habit for your listeners.

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And so , you're gonna want to give them enough content to sink their teeth into so

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they can get excited about what's coming next . So they can maybe start to see some

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value, some benefit, and you can really start to establish your podcast as one

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of the shows that they'll come back to.

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Now, the second reason that it's really helpful to release five episodes

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on that Friday is that it starts to trigger some things in the algorithm.

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If you can release enough episodes and you can get enough people

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doing enough stuff on your app.

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What that does is that starts to trigger you in the charts.

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And there have been some things that have been put out recently about

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the validity of charts and whether or not they're actually important.

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And I'm not here to debate that that's its own episode entirely,

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but the benefit of putting out.

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A host of episodes or dropping five episodes on that first day

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is that it gives you a much better chance of ranking on the charts.

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And so the next thing that we'll do just to kind of give you the

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schedule is the next part of it is we will release the next five episodes

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one a day for the next five days.

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Right?

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Well, starting on Monday, we give them the weekend to listen.

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And then on Monday we'll release episode.

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On Tuesday episode 7, 8, 9, and 10.

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So over the first really week or so, you know, calendar week, there's

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10 episodes that are released.

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And what this does is it really amplifies everything that I talked about.

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It gives listeners enough to really binge and sink their teeth into.

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Right.

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My wife and I recently started watching a show on Netflix.

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And I imagine that it came from a network first because it's kind

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of an older show that we found and stumbled on, but it is 22 episodes.

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There's 22 episodes there.

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And I was shocked because we got through.

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The first time we found it, we watched like five in a row.

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We were on, um, kind of like a mini staycation vacation.

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We were in a hotel room with nothing to do for a few hours.

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And so we just binged out on these episodes and only to realize that we

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were five episodes in thinking that we were like almost done and there was.

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17 more to go.

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Now here's the added benefit of that, right?

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From the, you know, from, from the creator side, we are still watching that show.

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We're now 16, 17 episodes in something like that.

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We're working our way to the, end of this first season.

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But even that, after that, there's another.

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40 episodes.

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There's another two seasons.

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After that, my point in saying that is that when you give them

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enough to sink their teeth into, at the beginning, you have a much

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better chance of sticking around.

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If they only have one episode to listen to, and then you're gonna expect them to

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come back the next week to listen to it.

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Well, maybe they do, maybe they don't, but even if they do, they've

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only now listened to two episodes and that's not nearly enough for

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them to be able to create that habit.

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It.

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Now after we release those 10 episodes, that's when we'll go to a regular

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schedule, whether that's one, a week, two a week, you know, we think that

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three is probably the, unless you're doing a short daily podcast, three,

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you know, you can kind of play with that, but after those first 10,

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then we'll move towards our regular.

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Now the best way to do these is obviously to batch record them.

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And you can do that over periods of time where, you know, you record a couple

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every week and kind of stockpile them.

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That's one way to do it.

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We like to batch them, put them all in one day, especially if they're

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interviews or recordings, right.

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And you're gonna, you know, kind of knock them out.

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You can record two or three in a day and still have a lot of energy and a,

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you know, and make it a great interview.

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So those are a couple of ways to get.

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Now the second part of the plan is to get a hundred advanced listeners.

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And these are people that are often gonna be friends, family,

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coworkers, connections, people that you're already connected

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with that you can ask in advance.

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Hey, we're releasing a new show.

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I'm releasing a new show.

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I'm releasing a new podcast.

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, I'm releasing a new season, whatever it is.

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On this date, we're trying to get this many downloads or we're trying

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to get into the ranking for this.

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And we could use some help.

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Would you be willing to listen to an episode or two

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if you had the time, something like that.

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Right.

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You know, I'm just kind of riffing here, but that's what we would say.

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And we'd send that out.

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And obviously if you're gonna get a hundred advanced listeners, you're

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probably gonna have to send it out to more than a hundred people.

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Here's the good news.

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You've got more than a hundred people in your.

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Oftentimes you have more than a hundred people in your phone book, you have

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a hundred people in your Facebook friends list, your Instagram followers,

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your, your, your LinkedIn connections.

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I mean, chances are, you are connected either in real life or online with that

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with well, more than a hundred people.

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So awesome.

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You're you just have to reach out and ask them now.

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How much do you want to succeed?

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How much do you want your show to succeed?

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How, how, like, that's, that's what we're talking about here now in your

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head, you're probably asking what does it matter if my mom listens?

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What does it matter?

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If whatever?

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Well, for sure.

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What, what does it matter if your mom listens?

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I don't know.

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Hopefully you're making a show that people can get some value out of, and maybe your

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mom can get some value outta the show.

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But frankly, if my mom listened to this show, she probably wouldn't

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get a whole lot of value out of it.

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But to that.

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What that's gonna do is it's gonna get you some downloads, but more than

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anything, it's gonna trigger in the algorithm that you're a show that is

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legitimate Spotify and apple, and all of these apps they're looking to see which

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shows are getting the most activity.

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And then they're going to use that data to be able to know which

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shows are worth recommending.

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And right now the machines are not smart enough to know whether

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or not it is your mom or not.

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All it sees is a download and lets it know that this is probably a good show.

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Now, is that going to make your show successful in the long term?

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Absolutely not.

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Which is why we have part three of the blueprint, but.

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if you do these in conjunction, right?

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You've got your 10 episodes, you get a hundred advanced listeners.

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There's actually a really good chance that you're gonna get into the rankings

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and you can actually pro and you can try and leverage that into getting more

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downloads because the last part of it is connecting with a thousand people.

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In your audience,?

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A thousand ideal listeners.

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And you can do this a variety of ways, but the easiest way is probably

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gonna be through social media somehow, you know, some way online, whether

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that's through Twitter or TikTok or Instagram or however you can connect.

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But we, I mentioned those ones.

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LinkedIn is even another great one.

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Any of these places where you can actively go out and connect with people, Facebook.

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Those are, are great platforms for you to be able to connect with people.

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And what you do is you just start connecting you comment, you like,

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you know, you can go and join groups.

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You can comment on videos.

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All of these people are starving for connection.

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And so if you can create a real genuine connection with someone in your niche, in

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your audience, in your ideal listeners, then you're going to some of them,

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not all a thousand of them, but some of them are gonna trickle into your.

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You can set it up the right way.

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We have a breadcrumb method that we recommend of getting people to your show.

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Right.

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And that's probably, you can go back and look at some of the episodes on that,

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but if you're just getting started, you're brand new, you're going to have

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to go out and connect with these people.

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They are not going to come to you.

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And so, like I said, comment on.

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On their tweets on their posts, reply to their tweets comment on

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their posts, reply to their videos

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and make real genuine connections.

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And the ones that reach back out, the ones that express in interest really

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go deep with those ones really take advantage and, and not in a negative

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way, but, but take advantage of the opportunity to connect with these

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people . In your potential audience while you can, while the numbers are

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smaller, so you can learn what they want.

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You can learn what they need.

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You can learn what they're interested in, what they're challenged by.

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All of these things are really, really important.

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So hopefully this, this three step blueprint, this three part blueprint

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gives you a, a simple process to know how to drive some activity to

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your show, and when you do this, you're gonna see some activity.

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You're gonna see a bump in your download.

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You're gonna see it go up.

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And the good news is, is that you can replicate this

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process over and over again.

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. Are you going to constantly have to be messaging your mom and your

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friends and your coworkers to listen to your podcast all the time?

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No, you probably should.

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Not only have to do that one time.

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If you do part three the right way.

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And if you continue to do part three, so I'd love to know if this makes sense.

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I'd love to know where the holes are, cuz this is just, I.

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Kind of spitballed this after jotting down some notes and writing and, you know,

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first I wrote a post on LinkedIn that seemed to really resonate with people.

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Then, uh, I kind of went through a little bit deeper and put some thoughts to paper.

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And now we are getting this episode here that, uh, hopefully you are

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able to stick with me through.

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So if you have any questions, come find me on a Twitter, Hector underscore podcast.

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If you guys need help with your podcast, check out amplify media.com.

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All the links will be in the show notes.

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And if there's someone else who needs help with their show would love for you

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to send them this one and see if we can help have a great and wonderful day.

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And thanks as always for being part of the NYP fam.

About the Podcast

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Podcasting Success Secrets
A Podcast that Gives You Everything You Need to Succeed at Podcasting

About your host

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Hector Santiesteban