Welcome to Digital Podcaster. My name is Dylan Schmidt, your host, thank you for joining me for today's episode. And I'm really looking forward to this one because this is something that I see a lot of people struggle with. And I've got a good outlook, I believe on, on how to get around it. And what I want to talk to you today about is how you can talk about anything you want on your podcast, a lot of people when they're starting getting into podcasting, and I don't talk a whole lot about podcasting strategies and things like that on this podcast. I know that seems counterintuitive to my business, Digital Podcaster podcasting Academy, but I just want to also share a little bit my mindset around this because it's almost similar to the title, not how you can talk about anything you want on your podcast. While I don't necessarily talk about podcasts, when I have a business about podcasting, and I post about podcasting on social media. So how does that even work? And what's my approach and mindset around that? Because that's different than a lot of people would do. And a little bit different than I might even suggest for some people, it's all starts with your goals. So if your goals with your podcast, or do you have a very specific outcome, especially for podcasts that are for businesses, you have to create more urgency around whatever it is that you're selling, right. So that might look like if you had a if you were a lawyer, and you had a pot and you wanted to start a podcast, you would want to anywhere in the purpose of the podcast was to drive to get more leads or something like that for your for your podcast, it wouldn't make sense then, for someone to enter into your world. And you're talking about all these other things that have nothing to do with law or what to do if you're in a situation where you would need a lawyer right? Because the runway is rather short or let me use a dentist as an example switch it up. Similar thing though, cuz I saw actually recently a dentist talking about this. So it made me give me kind of this idea too. So if you were a dentist, because I don't know much about law in the terms of like to use a good enough example. If you were a dentist, how much is someone thinking about a debt, their dentist when they're not making an appointment to go to the dentist or they're not at the dentist? They're not doing a lot right there. They're just making their appointment and then they're showing up. No one's like, I want to learn more about dentistry that's not either working for dentists or something like that. Like, like, no one's just like, I just really want to work on my flossing game over and over again. Like, like someone's practicing basketball to then go to school for basketball, right? People would consume content for a dentist. That is they want to maybe become a dentist or they want to work in the field of dentistry. But likelihood of people just tuning into a dentist podcast is rather low. But dentists have podcasts. And because the fact of the matter is, people will search things on Spotify, Apple podcasts, things like that. And they'll look up for something like so someone might look up flossing, for example, on Spotify, and want to look for a podcast about flossing. People use that for information gathering things like that. Well if they enter that dentists world, it's because they're like coming in with a problem, right? And they're looking for an episode that has the solution. And in this case, we're talking about a dentist podcast, and he has an episode all about I say he or she nonbinary could be anybody. They say they have a podcast about flossing. And next thing you know this person that wants to learn more about flossing is now listening to a podcast about flossing. And if the dentist has something only local for sale, then that's what they're going to sell or advertise on the podcast right if you're in the Charlotte, North Carolina area, make sure to come on by to this place that's more targeted, but if they had something digital for sale, like we actually have a floss habit challenge where we found that the best way to build a flossing habit is through flossing five days a week. For some whatever the thing is, and you can come to this dentist the naming trend in the same time you go to five day floss challenge.com and sign up for this challenge. They're collecting email addresses, then maybe they have something else for sale like they might have like a actual like, like improve your mouth care your teeth game or like a program not a game but like a program that they sell. So next thing you know they have something more for sale. Well because they have rather specific one fernet financial interests in mind, but they're building a business with a podcast. It makes total sense that they have these highly targeted episodes. Teaching educating around one specific subject, and then giving something for free or for sale on the podcast that then has the person that has the problem to take the next step to help them with the solution. In that case, the problem is I'm not flossing enough. Well, the solution number one is learning more about it on the episode. And then the new problem is, is cool. Now I know how to floss, I need to make that a habit. Maybe they don't even know that they need to make it a habit. But you present that on the podcast of it being now you. Now you need to build this into a habit because flossing once doesn't actually do anything for you long term, really. So they're like, that's why you come to this website. So that's the new solution. Now, why bring that up is because there is such a targeted solution to the problem that the podcast is providing. It doesn't make sense for that podcast, to then go on a long detour road have absolutely anything that they want to talk about on the podcast, because their goal with the podcast is to get more either email addresses that people are interested in. Not podcasting, email addresses, people are interested in flossing, or people buying some type of product around flossing doesn't make any sense, right? Because if if you start veering off that road, you're going to lose people. Like if I have been talking this whole time about how I make coffee. That would probably probably be like what this isn't living up to the title, the episode title that I clicked. So the likelihood is probably low that anyone would stick around till even this point in the podcast. So why I say that is because their goal is rather more targeted. They they don't want to mess up that goal. It's going to hurt their goal. They're talking about all this other stuff. And I see this happen on podcasts, especially new podcasts. And people get confused about it. And understandably so because you maybe listen to your favorite podcast and you feel like either they're not there, you always know their agenda, you just kind of get entranced in what they're saying. And next thing you know, you're like, yeah, it just feels like a friend. I'm talking to you. And like, yeah, that is great. And typically, especially if it's a business, there's like some other thing going on there. And it's not bad. It's not like you're being tricked. I mean, hopefully, I don't know, not speaking for their other podcasts. But it's not like it's bad. And you're obviously getting some value out of it, I would say so most likely it's not. There's no weird thing going on there. But I say this, because people will start a podcast and then talk about absolutely anything and then wonder why it's not growing. And that's what I want to talk about here. Because the whole the episode title is How to talk about anything you want on your podcast. And it's something that I know people want to do. And they don't know how to approach. So that's why I'm talking about this again. And I got the solution here. So number one, it starts with What's your goal for the podcast. If you want to talk about anything you want on your podcast, chances are, you're not having a specific goal in mind as far as business goes. Because there's a big distinction or important distinction to make between a business podcast and more of a lifestyle could still be educational, or you know, something like that conversational type podcast, the goals are different. So I just want to identify those two things. And notice that okay, we're not talking about business podcast now. Now we're talking about maybe Lifestyle podcast, I see a ton of comments out there. And I read them because you know, I want to get feedback. But you know, sometimes it's comments are rough. But in all in all ways, and one of the things I see is people say that there's a lot of bland podcasts or boring podcasts out there. And one of the ways I think that that I've heard that, like a bunch of different people. And I think one of the reasons why that is is because people aren't bought in on the bigger vision. They don't know like, what's the purpose and feel like it almost feels selfish. If you're rambling for a selfish reason, then people are gonna have a hard time tuning in. At the very beginning, the very I'm talking all about in the beginning stages, things get way different. When you've already built an audience, you have way more leverage and flexibility with people paying attention, because people will stick with you through harder to places that other people wouldn't stick. Well, it looks selfish, to a brand new podcaster like or listener of a brand new podcast that has that podcast has like very little audience doesn't look as selfish if it's someone that's established and already has a fan base. So also we have to identify those two things. And if you're just starting out with no audience, and we're treating this idea of conversation because podcasts are in the family of conversations, but again, there's different types of podcasts, obviously, but people will treated is just like an outlet for sharing their mind, anything, anything and everything. People, I've seen everything peoples, they say their therapists that they should start a podcast, all that stuff? Well, it's like, if you're just going to absolutely talk, whatever you want to talk about, and with no goal in mind, you are going to have just so you know, not saying don't do it, not saying that at all, I'm not saying any of this isn't like, hard, fast advice. I'm just saying, set proper expectations for what you're doing, you're gonna talk about absolutely anything, you've just got to be aware that you're not going to attract, you're going to attract essentially, also, one thing, you're gonna attract what you put out there. So if you put out absolutely anything out there, you're gonna get absolutely anything back. That may be good or bad, right? Because you're not associated with a certain group, you know, and not saying that you can't be someday. But if you're a solo pocket, and I see a lot of this, even people with conversations, all of this, I see a lot, if you're, if you're a brand new podcaster, with no associations to other, you know, platforms, anything like that, and you are just going to talk about whatever you want, like what's on your mind. Just a reality check moment is like, you know, keep expectation. And I'm not saying don't do it, I'm just saying keep expectations reasonable. If someone is brand new, with all of the choices they have out there, with all of the chart charts and the money people put into making podcasts, and they come across yours. What's your unique perspective? Or what is the unique thing you're talking about? And if you are just talking about life, you know, as it is fine, but then make that your unique perspective. Like, I see people on YouTube, where they just filmed themselves commenting on one thing. And that's cool, because one, you know what the thing there is commenting about, like, if you're familiar with bang, energy drink, it's a, it's a wacky design energy drink. I saw my YouTube for you page, or whatever they call it. I saw there was this guy talking about buying energy for like, 20 minutes, and I had like, hundreds of 1000s of views. And then another video popped up by this guy, and he was talking about maybe the Kardashians or something, I don't know, how are being energy and the Kardashians related. They're not. And this guy is talking about little deep dive a little, little. It's almost like not even a documentary. But it's like a social commentary on one thing. And people tune in for that because they know what they're gonna get. But I see people fail to deliver on one thing, even well, they're just kind of going all over the place. And that's cool, but just keep those expectations in check. So how do you then eventually be able to not only talk about one thing? For example, this podcast, I don't exactly word for word. I talk very around podcasting. Yeah, ideas, work, marketing, entrepreneurship, content creation, these are things that I love talking about. And I talk about this as an outlet to talk about those things that I love to just talk someone's ear off with, they could talk about this stuff all day. But how, how is it then that I can like open up this is a couple of things. One, the expectation from the beginning isn't for me to talk only about podcasting. I set that expectation as clear as I can. And it's not like a it's something I say every episode. But you can tell from the title that everything isn't exactly like podcasting how tos. And just like I was saying, with the YouTuber example around talking about bang energy drinks, he's sets that expectation through the, the thumbnail and the title of the video. And now you know what you're gonna get when you go into it. That's the goal of any episodes, really, you know, a brief idea, a good idea of what you're gonna get, people aren't going to just give you their time of day, if you don't say what it is, or a very, very, very, very, very small group of people will, you know, and it's like a fan of kind of off the wall art stuff. I love David Lynch movies and things that just artistically don't fit the mold. I get that there's a place for that. But again, you got to set it up from the beginning. Like if that's your thing, then make it your thing. And then go all in on like making it an art piece. But Don't dabble in of like, Yeah, I'm gonna grow this huge audience. And I'm also going to like, maybe talk about this and maybe talk about that, like, go all in on it, like people want to sink their teeth into something, not kind of, I just kind of just touched the surface level. I didn't get a really good idea of if this is for me, or this is not. And you could have a lot of freedom if you go all in on the thing. So all that to say like there's there's a podcast out there and I'm gonna say that Name of the podcast, if you know, you know, they're really popular. I think they're on all the platforms now. But they have a huge Patreon, following, make a lot of money. And they're just like, I don't know, I don't know how many guys are in it. They, they have a few guys in it. And they they're like, comedians, I don't know if they're all comedians, but they're comedians and they just chat. And they talk about anything and everything and they go on these little rants. But what do you get when you go on that podcast? Like if you listen to that podcast, you get a feeling of camaraderie, you get a feeling of, of you're hanging with the boys, you know, whatever, I don't even know what that is. I don't, I don't hang with the boys hang with my dog, my dogs sleeping on the chair next to me while I record this, and there's a microphone kind of conveniently placed by her. All you would hear a snore, she's a French Bulldog, she doesn't have the quietest breathing. I'm gonna love her. Her name is Quincy Adams. But you know, with this, this comedy group, I guess it's like a group of friends. It's like hanging out with a group of friends. And that's how I've heard people describe why they liked that podcast. All that to say, the common interest round there is just social, like being social with some friends. When like, my barber said it best he says when he listened to that podcast, it feels like he's in high school again, he said, and it feels like they just nothing's off limits, He can say whatever he wants. Cool. And that is pretty identifiable. From what I've heard, and that podcast really fast. On the flip side of the coin, we've got podcasts out there who just they don't even know, it's like, maybe they're trying to do a little bit of this trying to do a little bit of that. And it's just it dilutes everything. And so there's a couple of different approaches here, we talked about the business one, we talked about someone who you're you're, you're clear on what it is that you're giving people. And maybe if you're not clear on what it is you're giving people, I'm gonna give you a way to talk about anything on your podcast, I'm doing my best to deliver in the most. Not informal, but the most promising way. Like I want to over deliver a little bit about how to talk about anything, because it's a much deeper discussion than just saying, like, just say whatever you want, or just nail your niche or something like that. Not now. Because there's more to it. So what I do suggest is going deep on one thing, absolutely one thing, and this is if you want to talk about anything on your podcast, which at this point in the episode, you do, because you're stuck this far keep, you got to choose just one thing that would hook somebody to get their attention. Because if you try, it's so much harder to sell personality when nobody knows you yet, than it is to sell something else that someone already knows. So for example, on this podcast, Digital Podcaster. I mean, I love content, and digital marketing and online business and entrepreneurship. I love that stuff. I have other interests. It's not the only thing I like, but it's it's what I love. I love love, love, love, love this, I can always talk about it. And I That's my common thing. But I can blur the lines. And I could talk about other stuff. I don't too much on this podcast, just because it takes up enough time to talk about the stuff I love. But if it what could happen, and I'm not going to get a minute only child hears me talking about anything I want to focus. I'm an only child and I'm a bit of a lone wolf in a lot of ways. I like friends, I have friends, I like friends. I don't actually care for the show friends there. I said, but I have friends. And you know, I don't know, I just I want to do the podcast, lone wolf style. It's my it's my jam. Only child thing. So, so now I totally forgot what I was saying. Talk about content. But if if I was opening up that discussion, I wouldn't open it up super far from that, like you're not going to hear an episode next week that has nothing to do even an arm's length from podcast. However, if over time people fell and I'm not saying this from like an egotistical way I'm trying to if I had someone else to use an example in this moment I would use them because it sounds really that's not narcissistic but it feels maybe a little bit full of myself and I'm not trying to I want you to know I'm hopefully coming across them self aware enough that I'm not saying this and like this is any type of like goal or something like that is not but say people fell in love with my personality is so hard to say it's so uncomfortable. So people were like, they fell in love with my personality so much that they're just like we We want to hear anything from him. And we don't actually just want to hear him talk about content and stuff, well, then it would make sense to start a podcast that is just personality driven. And it's not really about content. And then it's talking about anything, because there's an audience built up around my personality. And people just want to hear me talk about what interests me. I don't, how many people do need to do that. Not very many at all, but like, you need some type of some type of audience there. Because think about it like this. And this is where your ideal listener comes into play. If I was starting a podcast about just all the things that interests me, it's like going to a party, and trying to just pick anybody out of the party and talk to them about your interests. And you might strike it every once in a while. But most people I've met have very, like really varied interests. And if you were talking to someone, one person at a party of like, out of 100, and you just started skipping from thing to thing that you like, it's going to be really hard to get that across to this person. Right? Like, they're gonna, they're gonna be lost, they're like, this person is talking about themselves. I don't feel I don't feel interested in their conversation, none of that. But if you were able to list those things out, and kind of find a common thread amongst the things and like, Hmm, well, these are the things I like, if this is the type of person that I like, speaking with this stuff about, it's much easier to talk to that ideal listener, that ideal person that you got a frame around of who this is for, than it is to just like, I just put this out there. And one of the ways is how you can think about this is if a friend say you have a listener, and they're sharing with a friend of, Hey, you gotta check out this podcast, they talked about this, that this that, because when someone is telling a friend, about your podcast, your content, whatever it is, you want it like that word of mouth conversation, what are they saying during that time? If I were to do my best guess, for Digital Podcaster, they would be like, yeah, there's this guy that talks he talks about, like marketing, content, entrepreneurship, like his interviews with different types of people like mental health, and, you know, content creators and things like that. That is how I would see it framed in that feels accurate of what I talked about on here. But if you're just talking about absolutely anything, it's going to be hard for that person to then tell their friend about it. Maybe they'll say but one episode, but is the likelihood of that friend listening now not very high. So I say that just because common interests are huge, and it is hard to attract, you got to like, if you're gonna attract a certain audience, you got to use the words they're using, you got to know who you're talking to, right. And that's why I say earlier in this episode, that is going on for a while now, it's going to be a short solo one. But I keep going. That's why I say if you want to attract more of an audience, like say, say you could have anybody show up to a live event of you performing, or you having a conversation with a friend, all of that stuff. And there's like 500 people there. What are the types of people that would be showing up at this event? What would be their interests, all that stuff, because you will get all sorts of people for your content? One way or the other, as you keep publishing, and if you just want absolutely anybody there that is okay. But for the most part, when you're thinking of like, if you like, personally, I like going to a concert and buying merch, like buying a t shirt, things like that. How would you design the merch, like how what would go into that stuff is very important to consider who the people are that you want to attract, the merch that you make for them is going to be different. The words that you use the music you play, all of that stuff is going to be attracting or repelling someone, right? So and it's I wouldn't be worried about getting so hyper specific, that it's one stopping you from publishing. And I wouldn't be so worried that like you're going to repel the wrong person, or you're going to repel too many people, because content has gotten more ultra specific over the years. And so you can be super specific, but people will be so opposite of that. That that it will make it really hard. And to give you an example for my personal life here, I have Digital Podcaster which I can repeat myself there. I talked about all that stuff. And then on my I have like other accounts that I post, just for the sake of learning, and I'm starting to grow an audience under my Dylan Schmidt account. your social media account, not a big audience. And I don't know how much of a crossover there is there just yet. I can't imagine that there's that many people. I don't talk about anything on that other account that has to do with content, podcasting things. I experiment on it, I just do it for fun, and I have a silly personality sometimes. So I just like will be silly on there. And people will leave nice comments, delete mean, comments, and people will follow me and what are they getting more of, they're getting more of me experimenting. And a part of me feels really weird when people follow because I'm like, you don't even know what you're following. Like, you have no idea what you're going to even get because I might eat, if you know me, like, I almost want to unfollow, I almost want to like remove you as a follower, because you don't even know if you're gonna get. And that's not the most ideal feeling anybody should have. When they're making content, I'll just be honest, like it should not be. But I do it because I want the freedom to experiment. And I kind of using it in a way for this episode of sharing, how to talk about anything you want, the most random people comment and interact with that account. If I made it super hyper specific for one person, then it would be really obvious if I was hitting my mark or not. And if I was making it really obvious for one specific person, I would be able to talk around certain subjects, I wouldn't only talk like every time I talked to this guy, I just needed to tell him, you need to do this, you need to do that you do this? No, it would be like a conversation of like, oh, man, have you ever wondered how you can talk about anything on your podcast, I'm not saying my ideal listener is necessarily a man or woman. But I am saying that the way I'm able to navigate talking about anything, I feel like anything I want on my podcast, is by having one core theme of content marketing, entrepreneurship, like solopreneur entrepreneur. And speaking to that, and then allowing there to be conversations naturally, that form around that, that universe there. Because when I listen to podcasts that are like either just so cut and dry, that's why I can't script these podcasts. Because I have an exact, I don't have an exact word for word thing that I'm saying everything, there's no script. And that people some people don't like that some people do like that. And it's not up to me to find all the people who don't like that, I just will attract them into my world that either vibe or don't vibe. And the language I use, you know, the same language I would use if I was talking to you, and you were in the chair that my dog Wednesdays and she doesn't take up much space, you could probably even sit next door if you want. But I would be saying the same exact way, the same exact thing to you. And the same exact way, if you were in person here, I'm not talking any differently. So that's how in the most long way you can talk about anything you want on your podcast, is by talking and you get better at this, the more you do it, but you you talk in the way that you would talk if that person was in person. And then that one person was a like a real person. Because if you need a picture for that person, whatever it is, you just wouldn't only talk on the one thing when I talk with somebody, even when we're talking about podcasting, it is so easy to talk about a bunch of other stuff. And that's, you know, sometimes it's that's why I say if it's a business call, we want to keep it focused. If it's not a business call, if it's like maybe it's a friend or something and we're talking about content. Well, we might say hey, did you hear this thing? Did you see this thing? Did you know about this, and that's a conversation with a friend. So I'm kind of using example is like, if you had a co host of sorts, that's how you but you keep it around content. But also just notice this thing. I noticed for an exam, a good example of this would be Colin and Samir, who have podcasts, and they're YouTubers, they do a good job, I would say at this have of two friends that make content around they talk about the Creator economy. And they and this is like me sharing this with you as if you were again, like I'm just living the example. But I'm giving you an example of two people that do this, they will get off track a little bit, but then they'll also help each other stay on track around a certain theme. And that is great as a listener because when it's only information, it's like alright, well, I'm listening to the news. That's basically what it feels like. It feels like an article being read and it's boring and robotic. But when there's a looseness and a realness of the conversation that you know, it's not scripted. There's a lot of gold in that. So I think if you're wondering, like I don't know what to talk about, if you stay to all the on the topic. Sometimes that can be a little boring too. But if that's your if that's your mission, that's your mission, and you just go all in on that. But if you want to add more personality and things like that, one of the ways you can do that is by opening up the ability to talk around a topic To keep it relatable to the person by using different examples by using, telling different stories, that's one of the best ways you can talk about more of what you want. And again, at the end of the day, all I want you to do is go more into the thing that it is that you're trying to go into, because I don't want you to be so boxed in that you're like this podcast I'm making is so boring, because I feel like I can only talk about this one thing. But if you look at like public speaking, for example, if you had a podcast on public speaking, and I'm getting so passionate about this stuff, and talking so loud. If you had a podcast about public speaking, look at all the topics around public speaking, fear, networking, overcoming impostor syndrome, confidence, knowing what to say, having the right words, there's so much other stuff to talk about, than just public speaking, public speaking, it's my belief, if you're making content for that should be around like that should be the core is like you help public speakers, but you're talking around public speaking, because that's what's making it relatable to your listener, because they can pick the input all these different ways of I see how this works. Now. They have a better understanding, they're learning better. And you aren't just saying the same thing every time you speak in your content. That's all I got to say about that. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. All that to say if you listen by this point, I love you. I'm just kidding. I'm not kidding that I don't love you. But yeah, hope it was valuable. And I do love you. And if you could it mean the world to me if you would leave a rating and review on Apple podcasts and Spotify and all that to say podcasts a day for the month of May is still rolling. So I'll be back tomorrow. I hope you have a great day and I will talk to you soon.