6 HUGE Podcast Mistakes to Avoid | How To Podcast

hi there I'm Michael O'Neill and this is six podcasting mistakes that could kill your show I love podcasting and part of me loving podcasting is helping people launch high-end world-class podcasts unfortunately what I see too often is people kind of fly by knighting the podcast and they don't make it past that crazy 7 episode arc meaning most people's podcasts end at an average of the seventh episode in this video I'm going to explain why most podcasts fail chances are it's one of these six things now long before I was a podcaster I was a designer and a branding guy I've taken tons of that branding experience into my podcast launch clients I will tell you that right now at least 80% of why a podcast is successful if you don't already have an audience is your brand and I don't just mean your logo which is actually a big part of it your artwork but I mean the actual brand that your podcast represents if you don't know who your audience is and what you're talking to them about chances are they're not gonna find you oftentimes your podcast brand isn't necessarily your personal product brand meaning if you've already had a brand you've written a couple of books you've done a couple things in social media that may be great in that platform doesn't always translate to podcasting so part of what you have to do in your podcast is make sure that the people that are seeking the thing that you're talking about can find you and that may mean using a brand that's not the same one you've been using for years so let's say you're a personal trainer and you have Bob Jones personal training now if you make a podcast called Bob Jones personal training no one's gonna find it cuz they don't know what the heck Bob Jones personal training is about but if you normally train 40-somethings in CrossFit you might have a podcast called CrossFit over 40 which means if I'm some 40-something year old dude which I am and I'm interested in CrossFit I'm gonna go find your show so sometimes people that have a good personal brand it doesn't always translate to the podcasting world so number one nail your brand number two bad audio quality there's a misnomer in the podcast world which is hey man you got some good content just throw it out there and it's gonna be heard it's gonna be listened to and people aren't gonna worry about it that's not true at all when you think about how people consume podcasts they're gonna be in their car they're gonna be listening to you on earbuds typically they're in environments where they can hear you pretty well so if you have bad audio quality chances are they're coming on from NPR or morning radio or Howard Stern or something over to your Genki sounding podcast and going oh this is what podcasting is no thanks so unless you're Tim Ferriss and you get a bit of a Hall Pass cuz you walk in with many many millions of listeners you don't get a chance to bring those people back a second time the good news is in 2018 there's no reason not to have good audio quality right out of the gates you can buy a microphone for $69 on Amazon that gives you a fantastic sound and you can plug it in with XLR or USB this microphone is the audio-technica ATR 2100 I will link it up here in the description so you can check it out yourself one thing I might avoid if I were you are any of the blue Yeti microphones now if you have one that's fine but the problem with those mics are they are condenser microphones which require a very very quiet room I happen to have a very quiet room I've got three layers of soundproofing you can't see this but I got a drum set right over here and I do that because I die not only want to block the sound of my drums going out into the world but I want to block the world sound from coming into my studio so if you don't have that and you have kids and dogs and garbage trucks and things like that a condenser microphone is really hard to live with because it can hear a mouse fart in the next County you want a dynamic microphone this that I'm speaking into right now which is the Heil P R 40 is a dynamic microphone which means if I move my face away from this mic and like over here you can't hear the microphone as well as you can when I'm right on it so you want a dynamic microphone that it works when it's kind of a loud environment and this is a great one to choose that ATR 2100 I just suggested is a great dynamic microphone bang for the buck so you have a choice if you already have the blue Yeti you can use it as a doorstop which is what I recommend or you can get a quiet room try to get yourself like you can literally go into your closet and that's a good place to record from it's got all the clothes to dampen the sound if you've not tried that yet it actually works great I know a lot of people that are professional voice-over artists that literally record voice over from their closet the third thing that can kill your show is not researching your guests and this sort of dovetails into my number four but if you know a little bit about the person you're interviewing chances are you're gonna have a much more flowing show conversation and that's because you can ask them insightful questions versus all the stuff you'd find out on their about page so even if you just take 10 or 15 minutes to research who they are and what they've done right down into like what are some of their hobbies can you talk about the world series or their favorite sports team or the fact that they do stand-up paddleboarding or they they coach their kids volleyball if you research those things it makes the conversation flow so much better so research your guests at least a little bit if they have a great experience on your show they're gonna recommend you to their other big fish friends and you're gonna have way better content for your podcast than your competitors will number four and this is a this we start getting into a bit of my pet peeves because when you talk about what we do as podcasters you are a host you are a podcast host by definition if you invited somebody into your house for a party you would never just say hey this is Bob and then just let them roam freely you would introduce Bob around so people at your party to get to know Bob and they had some context on how they knew Bob that's how you want to introduce your guests what I love to do is I call it the 8-mile technique which is if you've ever seen mm 8 mile the last scene of the movie is the big rap battle between him and the bad guy and he has to go second or I'm sorry he has to go first which means that whoever the guy that goes second can use all of that ammo against him and this is a freestyle rap battle so the idea is I'm gonna cut up the guy I'm battling against and whoever can flow better whoever has better you know ball busts is gonna win the rap battle but what Eminem did in his is he busted himself the entire time so he took a minute and a half and just he said yeah I am white trash I did grow up or you know blah blah so by the time the other guy got to go he had no ammo Eminem had used all of his ammo so what I like to do when I have a good big fish guest is I'll look at their about page and I will introduce them using all of the stuff that they're really well known for so I'll say yeah this person did this this and this and I'm literally reading from their about page cuz I never want to talk about anything that's already on their about page on my show so by the time I get done with their intro I've already used all their ammo which means they have to be original and interesting on my show that is my mm 8 mile technique so you want to introduce them with a really great edification and if I can pull it off I'm gonna throw a video right here first he created and started one of the greatest sketch comedy shows of all time he has two new Stannah specials premiering on Netflix this spring please welcome Dave Chappelle [Applause] what I love about that video of Jimmy Fallon is that he does everything a great professional host does and he did it in like 10 seconds he fired his guests in this case Dave Chappelle he plugged his guests by saying hey his Netflix specials are coming up here here here and the most important words of any intro happened at the very end of the intro and that is your guests name never utter your guests name before the last two words that is a sign of someone who's really studied the art of hosting by saying something like my next guest did blank blank blank blank their next blank is coming up November 15th at 5 o'clock ladies and gentlemen bang-bang first name last name so you never say my next guest is Michael O'Neill Michael cuz all of a sudden now it reads like you're reading a bio from Wikipedia and there's nothing more boring for somebody to listen to that's Part A Part B never ever ever ever ever do the thing which is to say hey you know what I've told the audience a little bit about you why don't you fill in the rest of the blanks because what you're doing right now is you're handing the reins to your show over to someone who doesn't know anything about your audience they don't know how your audience learns how they listen how they consume your content plus it also means that you haven't done your job as a host you haven't done any research on your guests you should be able to answer that question yourself how does the experience of your guests relate to your audience that is by definition your job as a host to introduce that guest in a great way so number four is bad intro technique don't do it number five not ejecting from your questions this one is a bit of a rookie mistake meaning just because you've written a few questions down or you have the tornado round or the lightning round or the hurricane round doesn't mean you actually have to ask those questions if you're actually active listening to your guests and you say hey blah blah blah and they give you this great answer be ready with a follow up follow up that question with something that you thought of while they were responding if you just go awesome and then move on to the next question not only is it insanely boring for your audience but it's borderline insulting for your guest it tells me and I've been interviewed a bunch of times you didn't listen to anything I just said I just told you a really dear personal story about my parents or my dog or something and you just went awesome so when you Baba and I'm like wow I can't believe they did not even pay any attention or follow up at all to that thing I just said so follow up your questions and if you have a nice flow going of the conversation don't be afraid to just leave a few questions on the table you'll get to interview them again if you've done your job well with your podcast you will get to interview that person one more time finally number six and this is also my biggest pet peeve in what I would consider modern podcasting if I'm ever asked to speak about podcasting at conferences I always do a little informal poll of the audience and I always say hey how many in this crowd make it to the very end of a podcast and I will tell you unequivocally that it's about 15% of the people in that room make it to the very end of a show like to the closing credits but I'll ask you right now dear podcaster when do 99% of podcasters promote their guests oh wait now I know many of you right now out loud just said Oh at the end what that means is 85% of the people that listen to your show if you do this don't ever get to hear where they can find the person that you're interviewing which means that person just totally donated their time and expertise to your show without getting anything in return now no one says this has to be a quid pro quo and that people that are interviewed on podcasts have to get something out of it however it is your job as a host to make sure that they get something out of your show we go back to that Jimmy Fallon intro key plug Dave Chappelle right at the very beginning of that intro he said lazy elm and our next guest had one of the most successful shows blah-blah-blah-blah-blah his Netflix specials coming out blah blah blah there's the plug ladies and gentlemen Dave Chappelle and that's the intro so he got the plug out of the way really really early if you listen to anybody that's a pro Adam Carolla Joe Rogan Howard Stern anybody that does shows on a regular basis and came from a traditional radio background they plug their guests right away so my suggestion to you is plug your guests at the beginning middle and end of the show introduce them might you know today's guests did blank blank blank blank blank they have a brand new book coming out November 15th it's available on Amazon you can go to blah blah blah calm to get the show ladies and gentlemen Michael O'Neill now you've got your guests feeling really good because you've just gotten that plug out of the way then during the course of the show you continue to plug them don't ever this is part being my biggest pet peeve don't ever ever ever a wait until the end of the show and be say hey why don't you tell people where they can find you you know why because it's your job it's your job specifically as a host to tell your audience where they can find your guest which is why before you hit record on your podcast you find out all that information hey what are you plugging right now what are you promoting give a new book coming out what's the URL do you have a special hashtag do you have a special you know download code is there something that I can talk about during the course of the show because you're gonna be talking about this great content you want to be able to tell your audience how to get that content during the course of the show those are these six things that can kill your podcast let's recap number one you haven't nailed your brand yet number two you got bad audio quality number three you didn't research your guests enough number four bad intro technique number five not ejecting from your questions and no over six improper plugging if you want to find out about how to become a kick-ass podcast interviewer I have a course based on that very subject it's called the art of the interview and it's available at art of the interview dot Co if you go to art of the interview Co and use promo code YouTube I leave you a hundred bucks off your course I also have a show called the solopreneur hour which is on iTunes solo or calm slash iTunes or you can check it out in the description thanks for listening thanks for watching we'll see you soon

Channel: The Solopreneur Hour Podcast with Michael O'Neal

Views: 286,732

Keywords: how to create a podcast, how to make a podcast, content marketing, how to podcast, starting a podcast, how to start a podcast, smart passive income, entrepreneur, podcast, shure sm58, podcast setup, how to interview, podcasting, how to make money podcasting, how to make money podcasting 2018, zoom h6, podcast tips, podcast tips 2018, vaynermedia, podcast tutorial, how to start a podcast for free, podcasting for beginners 2018

Id: T1t-dmjcK5Y

Length: 15min 58sec (958 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 31 2018