Spoiler alert - yes they can. And I take great pride in helping them make it happen...
Good afternoon, if you're in the UK.
Hope you enjoyed your extra hour in bed yesterday.
Good morning if you're waking up in the US of A.
(We're closer to being back in the past with you again!)
And if you're elsewhere in the world, happy Monday to you (unless it's Tuesday there - in which case, G'day).
Talking of time, if you've ever spent more than a few weeks on trying to create a podcast that anyone seems to care about, you'll know first-hand what a challenge that can be. I mean, you've really got to love the idea of it, and have enough passion to cover your motivation. Seriously, passion is going to do more heavy lifting than a Linde truck in a busy warehouse.
It's simply untrue to say it's 'easy' to start a podcast, and that all you need is a laptop and a microphone. And this is exactly why I wish charlatans like Rob Moore would just get actual-rich already so we can all benefit from him retiring to some remote island.
I mean, sure, starting a terrible podcast is easy. But good luck keeping that up beyond the crucial ten-episode-milestone.
Last week, I schlepped over to London for an awards do.
Podmastery's parent company Podknows was sponsoring it, and I had the tremendous honour of handing out the winning prize to the category I was a lead judge on.
While I was there, at the Indie Podcast Awards, I learned a couple of very common opinions that indie podcasters have...
Click to learn more about how you can reduce your editing time to a fraction of what you were spending before
Indie podcasters suffer from serious imposter syndrome
I spoke to a lot - and I mean a LOT - of indie podcasters last Wednesday, and they all shared a similar story; they love being in podcasting, but wonder who the hell would want to listen, much less actually reward them for their work.
And this is the very issue that works against them from the beginning.
If someone has doubts over whether someone would be interested in what they're putting out in the world, it tells me they've not done enough research into whether their ideal listener even exists.
I mean, I'll give you an example.
Say you're a gifted poet, and you want to create a podcast aimed at helping other people who'd love to have a go at poetry, but you're really into canzone, then creating a podcast about canzone requires some existence of canzone fans in order to really make that work. We're not talking millions, maybe not even thousands. Perhaps just a few hundred would be enough to make it feel worth your while in creating the content.
Here's the deal.
A quick surface level search of 'canzone' themed content has told me that there are at least 25,000 people in the world are interested in the topic.
I landed on this figure by looking at a combination of YouTube videos, blogs, other podcasts with public facing listener stats, and many other online 'footprints'.
Here's the fascinating part - if you had even 1% of that audience listening to your content each episode, you're already a top 30% podcaster.
If an indie podcast is struggling with building a community of avid listeners, it's usually because of one or both of these two simple things.
Their content doesn't sound as good as it could. (Easily fixed)
Their content isn't being marketed correctly. (Easily fixed)
That's it.
There's no magic secret 1% pill here.
And no guru that claims to have some exclusive insider knowledge actually does. They're just marketing to you, using psychological tricks that they know will prey on your frustration and get you to part with your money.
What I teach my audit clients is that their opportunity to have their ideal listener sample their podcast and make a decision on whether they'll stick with it, rests within the first ten (sometimes seven depending on that individual's attention span) seconds of their episode playing.
Clap seven seconds to yourself while describing what you have to offer someone if they just give you a chance to 'share', and you'll realise how quickly that passes.
And that's if you've even managed to get their attention in the first place. Which, trust me, regardless of what the short form video bros are telling you, it won't happen because you spent 10 minutes creating an audiogram in Headliner, or a clip of an interesting segment on your TikTok.
Different media, for different goals I'm afraid.
But here's some good news for ya!
Bargain-priced indie podcast support - for one month only!
Meeting these indie podcasters in London last week broke my heart.
I'm blessed with more than two decades of experience in the audio and content marketing space, and I have knowledge that can literally change these people's lives.
So I'm offering it.
I'm calling November my 'indie podcaster advocacy month'.
Realistically, this is going to cost me time and money to provide, so I won't be able to sustain it beyond the end of November.
But until then, if you want to chew my ear off about your particular challenge as an indie podcaster (or even a pro podcaster - no gatekeeping here) and fancy a 15 minute chat (that you can choose how much you pay for), then book yourself in for one, here.
Once you've paid, you'll be presented with a calendar to book your slot.
This will be a 15 minute call initially, but if yours is a more complex challenge that I can't help you solve without a little more in depth investigation, I'll arrange a follow up with you at no extra charge.
Need more in-depth help?
If you want me to help you establish exactly why you're not getting the results you want, then you can get my professional help via an audit for the reduced indie-friendly price of £250 (again just for the month of November) - usual price is £400.
Hate to say it, Neal, but even £15 is too much for me to spare right now!
No judgement here, . I mean, you can even split the 'pay what you want' payment with Klarna. But, I get it. There are a lot of con artists out there and you might have been burned before.
Many of my now happy clients have been.
If you're not prepared to invest in making things better for yourself, then there's nothing I can do.
You might want to consider clicking that unsubscribe button below, because I can't help people who won't help themselves.
And before you do, feel free to continue running yourself endlessly through all my free advice on my blog. You'll find that, here.
But I really do hope you find the bravery to invest something into improving things for yourself. That's the only way you're going to actually make a huge difference in the world by sharing your brilliance.
And it's the only way you'll silence that demon in your head that's causing you to not believe in yourself.