Tag: Adam Schaeuble

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545- Securing your Podcasting niche

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In this episode of The Podcast Reporter, we discuss the theme advocated in episode 176 of the Podcasting Business School  with Adam Schaeuble earlier this year. The topic was how to “niche-down” the theme of your podcast show, so that your show can be accelerated for growth, engagement and attractiveness to listeners in the podosphere and be on the road to success, instead of going downhill.

In this mentioned episode, Adam describes four key symptoms that can indicate that you need to “niche-down” your podcast (which signifies that you are perhaps covering too wide an area and not getting the customer or listener engagement that you want). And these four symptoms are:

  • Lack of audience engagement or feedback from your listeners;
  • It has been difficult to monetize (because perhaps your offers are not attractive enough or just plain boring);
  • Stalled growth in subscriptions (or “follows”) and downloads, etc.;
  • Perhaps you are losing interest — either in topics or drudgery of creating another episode, etc. (it is too much of slavery for you).

Now, many podcasters see a “lull” or dip in performance of engagement with audience listeners, as well as with the statistics of their episodes. This does not mean all the time that the show is going downhill. It could be for a variety of reasons:

  • the Season has wrapped and the audience will be waiting for the beginning of the next season;
  • the virus crisis has changed their interest levels to other topics, and perhaps your podcast topic was more along the lines of entertainment in a pre-pandemic world where the topics were of a different nature or not as serious as a crisis;
  • more competition from other podcasters along the same topic and themes have taken away a lot of listeners (now that there a millions of podcasts out there, and the number is growing daily); or
  • with the lock-downs gradually retreating us back into the world of mobility and being “out,” the stay-at-home crowd that may have followed your show will now be on the move and perhaps the listener base has cut down on the listening of podcasts; or
  • Big and important announcements have been made and publicized by Apple and other vendors that relate to the podosphere and products, etc., for podcasting — and they have stolen the thunder and grabbed the momentary attention of your listeners;
  • and other reasons.

And, usually, the “dip” would soon recover back to the “normal” trend of growth and stability for your podcast show over time.

Well, this time, Adam deals with the elements that are too broad for topics or your show to deal with. He has several people whom he recorded and included in his episode number 176 of his show that deal with experiences — and these can serve as proof points and case studies.

For this podcaster, I have seen dips come and go. In some cases, I did a study to examine the causes of the dip for one or more of my podcast shows. And after this type of review, one result that I implemented was to PODFADE the show or shows which I felt had run their course and were no longer relevant to my audience in the podosphere.

In other cases, I saw which episodes could be REUSED or REPURPOSED in other active podcast shows (nearly all of the selected episodes could be repurposed with some editing and updating). And for the shows targeted for podfading, I quickly put into place the creation of another episode alerting the audience of the podfade for that show — it is just common courtesy to the listeners, and many of them resulted in going to my other shows or new shows that I had launched (their feedback told me so).

But for yourself, you have to decide what the causes of the “dip” are, and then you have to decide if this is a seasonal or temporary setback, or whether it is permanent — and then take the appropriate action for your show.

As Adam mentions in his episode, the symptoms tell the ugly truth about the current state of your show. You have to determine to accept the truth and status, and then you have to decide on which path to take to alleviate this dip — and one key way is what Adam mentions, which is to “niche-down” your show. So you may want to see if your own show should be “niched-down” to alter the downhill path and get your show back on an upward direction. And perhaps this will get you back on the road to success. And that means that you constantly have to monitor your show to see if these symptoms will tell you perhaps that you need to consider the tasks needed to “niche-down” your show.

Thank you for your attention.

Copyright (c) 2021, Matrix Solutions Corporation and Podcasting Business School and michaelandmike.com. All rights reserved.

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547- Ideas for preparing Podcast audits and interviews

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In this episode of The Podcast Reporter, we discuss the themes of professional planning that can be recommended when preparing a podcast show and episodes as a professional podcaster.

These themes and topics come from a podcast episode by Adam Schaeuble of the podcast show called Podcasting Business School.

Now, although the main thread of this episode intended to be focused on sales for your podcast, there are lots of smaller gems of suggestions that are discussed, and which could be of value to you and your show.

Here, several topics are discussed in the first half of the episode:

  • What service for scheduling and its cost (as suggested by Adam);

  • What you should be asking for besides “name” and “email” when someone schedules with you for the first time (e.g., for an interview in a podcast show);

  • The key series of questions that Adam asks when he is doing a one- on-one meeting or interview, or in a discovery session;

  • What Adam sees other podcasters adding to their interview scheduling form that could be worth a try;

  • In the 2nd half of this episode, Adam does a “podcast audit” (which is a program promoted by Adam for newer podcasters);

  • And finally, Adam gives some ideas for dialing in on a niche and rebranding.

  • For this podcaster, I would suggest that a newer podcaster consume the content (especially the first half of the episode) so that some key questions may be given consideration and possibly should be asked in many instances — especially for interviews and preparation workflow.

Many times, experienced podcasters (such as Adam) have learned the hard way the skills that include what works best in situations for interviews, having guests on shows, themes and other general information that can be discovered within a “podcast audit” — but Adam is giving you these highlights for free.

And if you do this before launching many episodes or your main show, you may be able to prepare a good habit for your workflow (especially for podcast guests or interviews).

I, myself, learned the hard way in 2006 about interviews, preparation and planning for guesting in podcasting — mainly because there were almost no resources or experience that dealt with these topics. And so, we had to learn about it on our own and refine our own tasks to make our podcast episodes better for our guests and interviews.

We hope that you can find value in the suggestions for an “audit” that are given by Adam in this episode, and that the VALUE can be delivered in final form by having a great episode with your guests.

Thank you for your attention.

Copyright (c) 2021, Matrix Solutions Corporation and michaelandmike.com . All rights reserved.

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481- Four years to Profitable Podcasting — a case study

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In this episode of The Podcast Reporter, we refer you to a recent podcast episode in the Podcasting Business School show, namely episode 113 that is about five necessary steps that a podcaster must take toward monetization success (as well as the pillars, etc.).

The host of this episode, Adam Schaeuble, tells the story of how he was able to become a profitable podcaster after four years. There are a lot of best practices, as well as land mines that he found along the way. And he recounts them to you, the podcaster and listener, in his episode #113 of his show.

As you will hear in his audio episode, Adam addresses the desire for monetization by a podcaster who sold his current business and went in full-time as a professional podcaster with a desire to do the correct steps toward monetizing his shows. He stresses the long-term creation of a show that will provide VALUE to audiences, as well as giving you the monetization categories. These are very important in the planning stage of going full-time into podcasting with the idea of creating your shows as a business — after all, you will become an entrepreneur.

But what is important is the series of roadblocks that needed to be overcome during the 4 years of his podcasting experience that we use as a case study for this episode.

Adam gives the good, the bad and ugly of creating a good podcast to deliver VALUE that results in monetization for full-time podcasters. And we hope that this can answer some questions for the new and aspiring podcasters — such as, “how long until I can get money from my episodes and show?” and “how long until I can quit my day-job and go full-time into podcasting with a profitable podcast?”

Thank you for your attention.

Copyright (c) 2020, Matrix Solutions Corporation and Adam Schae . All rights reserved.

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480- The real value of Podcast downloads and reviews and subscriptions

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In this episode of the Podcast Reporter show, we discuss a recent interview with Rob Walch, VP of Podcaster relations for libsyn. This was done by the audio podcast show called Podcasting Business School.

The main theme throughout this 48-minute audio interview by Adam Schaeuble was the REAL value to a podcaster of downloads, reviews and subscriptions of a podcast show and its episodes.

Now, I have known Rob Walch since 2006 when I met him at the very first Podcast and Portable Media Expo in Ontario, California and had a great conversation with him. I have read his book, and I have also interviewed him on this podcast show in the past, especially at conferences where he was representing libsyn.com. And because I respect so much his talent and his leadership and his contributions to the podosphere, I treat him like the “EF Hutton” in podcasting — that is, when he talks, everyone stops to listen. He has also had an early podcast show in 2004 and following called Podcast411.com. This was the audio podcaster’s version of “Inside the Podcaster’s studio” that mimicked the similar version of the television show for actors and directors.

As you will hear in that audio episode from the Podcasting Business School show, Adam inquires mainly about dowloads and their value to the aspiring and new podcaster mainly. However, Rob takes it a notch higher and explains the REAL VALUE to the podcaster of:

  • podcast episode downloads
  • podcast episode and show reviews, and
  • podcast show subscriptions.

For myself, I had never really got caught up in the mental fantasy of having zillions of downloads, as I chose NOT to advertise on any of my 18 podcast shows that I have had in the past 15 years. Instead, I chose to follow the path of monetization and discover value in feedback from other podcasters and listeners. And I chose to be involved in the value of live events and podcasting conferences.

I would very much suggest that you listen to the interview with Rob to see where you would land on the spectrum of reality in podcasting — whether you are drinking your own Kool-Aid in podcasting by believing some of the myths that Rob points out, or whether you are really chasing the value-based targets that can help to grow your podcast audience and lead you to make a success of your podcast show.

The answers have been delivered by Rob Walch and other very early podcasters in the podosphere for the past 15 years, but many of the new and aspiring podcasters still want to defy logic and reality and follow their passion as they try to convert their dreams into what seems the road to success.

We hope that you, as a podcaster, can get value from what Rob explains — for he has the credentials, the logic, the experience and the reality of what it does take to grow your show.

Thank you for your attention.

Copyright (c) 2020, Matrix Solutions Corporation . All rights reserved.

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BONUS episode- A successful story and description of networking and podcasting

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In this episode of The Podcast Reporter, we discuss the tools, plans and workflow from a successful entrepreneur and podcaster, whose name is Adam Schaeuble.

Where can you find him? Answer: in the podosphere, for it is the podcast show called “Podcasting Business School — with Adam Schaeuble” – episode 139 “Becoming a Networking Ninja.”

This 21-minute episode not only explains how to network and get in touch with your strategic business connections, but he also parts the curtain to show you his own SYSTEM for business experience and business workflow for networking, as well as preparing for a podcast episode for his show. These tasks develop the business and podcast show growth. These activities include:

  • networking — meeting and communicating either in person or online;
  • interview swaps in podcasting;
  • networking contacts — capturing data on in-person or online meeting, with contents, results and follow-up;
  • which tools are used in recording, updating and pursuing contents for the business (especially podcasting);
  • the workflow in creating and updating an efficient system to add more value to contacts and vice-versa for business;
  • the important tasks of follow-up in using this system for recording our experience for contacts;
  • Selected Zoom chats, office hours weekly meetings, interviews, podcast audits, and training with customers;
  • “Ground-and-pound” meetings with selected contacts;
  • and other items.

What is interesting is that Adam uses his own experience as cases-in-point to give you an example of how his business (which is podcasting and podcast training). He also details how he creates a file for each contact, including the value from one-to-another and the history of communications with the contact, as well as other related ideas of interest for the remote contact. He also explains which tools he uses and how he uses the tool and records the tasks — e.g., calendar, results of contact communication, consultations, commitments, etc.

For aspiring podcasters or new podcasters, what I would recommend is consuming episode # 139 and compare your own processes and workflow for business (and podcasting, as well) to see if his ideas and his experience can help you out in making your own business more efficient, more effective and more productive to make your entrepreneurship and podcasts more successful.

Thank you for your attention.

Copyright (c) 2020, Matrix Solutions Corporation and Podcasting Business School with Adam Schaeuble . All rights reserved.