Why Most Podcasters Give Up and Quit

In episode nineteen of Podcasts Suck, Sebastian Rusk discusses the benefits of going live during podcast recordings to engage with listeners and reach new audiences. He highlights the importance of understanding the unknowns in the world of podcasting and how their podcast aims to provide valuable insights. He also mentions their new newsletter on LinkedIn and emphasizes the platform's value for networking and content sharing.

TIMESTAMPS

[00:02:55] Podcast Pulse Recap on LinkedIn.

[00:07:00] No One's Listening, Who Cares?

[00:10:08] Keep Learning and Growing.

In this episode, Sebastian Rusk emphasizes the importance of shifting focus away from the idea that no one is listening to your podcast. Instead, he encourages podcasters to concentrate on creating valuable content and building relationships with their audience. He also recognizes that creating podcasts can be exhausting, especially when done alone. Many podcasters may experience burnout if they try to produce episodes too frequently. Therefore, he advises prioritizing quality over quantity and finding a sustainable pace.

In addition, when it comes to monetizing a podcast, the host advises against focusing on making money from day one. While making money with a podcast is a desirable goal, it is essential to first focus on creating content and building an audience. Thus, Sebastian also highlights the importance of passion in podcasting. They state that if a podcaster lacks passion for their topic, the audience will not be engaged in listening to what they have to say. They emphasize that passion is crucial for audience engagement.

QUOTES

• "It's my responsibility to continue to show up. It's my responsibility to the craft, my responsibility to my audience. It's a responsibility to those that want to learn and understand what the power of podcasting can do with their life and their business."
• “If you're not passionate about this, your audience isn't going to be passionate about hearing what you have to say."
• "Keep learning and growing and don't stop until you actually know everything that you need to know, which is never, do you understand that there is never a time where we know everything because we don't know anything."

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SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS

Instagram: Instagram.com/PodcastsSUCK

Facebook: Facebook.com/srusk

LinkedIn: LinkedIn.com/in/sebastianrusk/

Youtube: Youtube.com/@PodcastLaunchLab

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Transcript

Sebastian Rusk00:02 - 11:56
Welcome to Podcast Suck, a podcast about starting a podcast, where we dive headfirst into the wild, wacky, and sometimes frustrating world of podcasting. If you've ever sat down with a microphone, hit record, and thought, what on earth am I doing? Or if you're just curious about the magic behind your favorite shows, then you're in the right place. Get ready for laughs, insights, and a whole lot of what not to do advice as we embark on this podcasting journey together. Let's dive in. All right. What's happening, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of podcast, suck a podcast, all about how to start and grow a podcast from time to time, especially recently. I've been trying to go live here to give some additional context to the episode where a little bit of interaction with comments and whatnot. And then in addition to that, being able to reach people that may not be listening to podcast and well, hopefully you'll learn something and say, you know what? I think I'm going to start listening to podcast. That, that is really the goal here, regardless of where you're at in your podcasting process, journey, whatever you'd like to call it. I don't like that word. It's a journey. I hope the podcast can bring you some value as far as helping you better understand what you don't know that you don't know about the world of podcasting. So whether you're just getting started, maybe you're restarting, maybe you are thinking about getting started, whatever the case may be. I'm glad you're here. In addition to this new podcast, I started a new newsletter, a new newsletter over on LinkedIn. If you're not on LinkedIn, you're really missing out. This is a grossly underrated platform. And it was the first social media platform on the block. A lot of people don't know that. A lot of people are like, what about my space? It was LinkedIn and then my space. And then the Facebooks. So LinkedIn is extremely powerful. Uh, their new, uh, newer feature of being able to, you've always been able to write an article for quite some time now. And then I think sometime last year, year before last, they released a newsletter option. I decided to launch a newsletter on LinkedIn because it allows subscribers specifically to that newsletter. And it also markets the newsletter to your existing followers and connections on LinkedIn. So LinkedIn does a lot of the work for you. When you write an article, it simply shows up in the newsfeed for your followers and connections to read when you create a new edition of your newsletter, your subscribers are notified as well as you've been able to share it with your network and followers and connections, et cetera. So I deemed it appropriate that we do a quick little recap of this week's volume one, number three, of the podcast pulse over on LinkedIn. You can click a link in the description of this podcast episode or a link below wherever you're watching this on YouTube or LinkedIn. Speaking of LinkedIn and Facebook and over on Instagram, there's a link in my bio ticket right there. You click subscribe, you'll get notified when new additions become available each and every week. So this week is why podcasters quit and give up. It's actually why podcasters give up and quit, but it's the same thing. So why podcasters quit? Let's just keep it short there. Fun fact, real quick, I always include a fun fact at the beginning of the newsletter, and that fun fact is that podcasts can be educational for your feline friends. That's right, dogs do in fact like podcasts. In 2019, Spotify launched a My Dog's Favorite Podcast, a podcast designed specifically for dogs left home alone. The show features soothing voices, relaxing music, and other sounds intended to keep dogs company and alleviate anxiety. It's an example of how podcasts can cater to diverse audiences, including your fine furry friends. So fun little podcast tip there. Look up that podcast. Heck, we'll throw a link in the show notes of this episode. If you're listening to the actual podcast of my dog's favorite podcast. I love that. When I looked that up today, big shout out to my friends over at chat GPT and all the robots working tirelessly around the clock to provide me with five interesting tips about podcasting the podcast about dogs being one of them. All right, first and foremost, I wanna talk about the downfalls that people experience, what I've seen happen, what I've experienced as well when you're starting a podcast and then you're trying to figure out how you're going to continue momentum and how do I stay at it and how do I record every day? Listen, there's not a day that goes by that I'm like, I can't wait to get in the studio and record an episode. I've recorded about a bazillion episodes over the past 14 years. Most days I'm recorded out, but it's my responsibility to continue to show up. It's my responsibility to the craft, my responsibility to my audience. It's a responsibility to those that want to learn and understand what the power of podcasting can do with their life and their business. That's why I show up to a quick little side note there. So the first and foremost thing I talked about in the newsletter, we talked about the, the, the, the pie in the sky reasons why you may quit podcasting. The first one being the, I'm going to get rich. I'm going to have a million downloads the second month. And I'm going to monetize this thing with sponsors, unless you're a celebrity or large, gigantic name, monetizing a podcast. Isn't the easiest process because you have to have the numbers to be able to show for it. You've got to prove yourself month after month that you can sustain numbers in order to yield the interest of advertisers. So, If you're first getting started, don't focus on, how can I make money day one? Of course you want to make money with the podcast, but your strategy should be, I'm going to start a podcast, create content. People are going to see the content. I'm going to remain top of mind. I'm going to build new relationships. And then people are going to call me and do business with me. I've lived this out for the past decade, and I'll continue to do it. I don't do any cold calling. I don't do any outreach. I network. I get in the right rooms. I speak. I do comedy. I create content. I do live videos like this to turn into podcast episodes that turn into a YouTube video that turn into another newsletter down the road. See, all I'm doing right now is reading the newsletter, not word for word. We're doing a quick little recap here, but the goal is to teach you what I want to teach you in the newsletter, but also get you over to the newsletter. And if you're listening to, if you're in the newsletter, I want you over on the podcast and vice versa. I want you as far into my ecosystem as possible. So you're consuming content with whatever works for you. Second thing I mentioned pie in the sky thought process. I called this, I didn't put this in the article, but I may update it or the newsletter rather. And that is no one's listening. So what, what if I told you that I could care less how many people listen to my podcast? I really don't care. I don't. It's fun to see metrics and numbers. I think beyond the story has around 45, almost 50,000 downloads. That's over 10 years. And we've rebranded the show three times. I don't care about numbers. I don't care about metrics. I care about relationships. I care about creating content and I care about how I can monetize those efforts. by podcasting, by creating content. That's all that I'm interested in. I want to build relationships. I want to do deals. I want to do life with people that are in my ecosystem that I've decided to build a relationship because I started a podcast. So this whole idea of no one's listening, who cares? Get over that. I want to move quickly, move on from, from that, because that's all I want to say to that. There's not a lot to talk about and continue to, to go back to when it comes to No one's listening. Who cares? Move on. They shouldn't. Who cares? Who's listening? Make sure you're creating the content. Make sure that you're listening to your instinct of what you should be doing with the podcast to build relationships, to create content. That makes sense. The burnout express train creating podcasts can be exhausting, especially when you're doing it alone. Many podcasters bite off more than they can chew, cranking out episodes weekly or even daily. Burnout is inevitable at that pace. Major key instead of, trying to be everything to everybody every day, set a sustainable schedule that you can stick to longterm. I always like to say, put together a realistic schedule for you to be able to record twice a month. Every other Thursday from 12 to two, we record four episodes back to back and we don't talk about the podcast the rest of the month. As far as recording the lack of passion. Listen, if you're not passionate about this, your audience isn't going to be passionate about hearing what you have to say. Now that's the gloom and doom section of it. I've now included some tactical things you can do and I'm gonna run through them really quick. Cause I have a call right now and I just wanted to see and challenge myself and say, can we go live, crank out an episode of podcast, suck and make it to our call within a reasonable timeframe. So Kevin, if you're watching this, I will be right there. Number one, find your unique voice. Number two, build a solid content calendar, plan out your content. So you know exactly what you're posting, when you're posting, where you're posting. Plus you can analyze that data and find out what content works better, where embrace the hustle. I can't stand that word because everyone's a hustler and an entrepreneur, bro, but you have to embrace the hustle of having a podcast. What's possible. Talk about that a lot. What's possible by saying, you know what, I'm gonna start a podcast. Talk about that a lot in my talks because I love saying it and talking about it because it gets me excited. If I can get excited and get other people excited, I get other people excited. They'll take action. connect with your audience. When you post micro content, people leave you a review, people comment, like, share, get back to them and reply back to them and thank them first and foremost. And then next after that, make sure you're engaging with them and giving them thoughtful replies. That's very important. Keep learning and growing and don't stop until you actually know everything that you need to know, which is never, do you understand that there is never a time where we know everything because we don't know anything. It is the true secret to happiness. All right, episode, uh, this episode of podcast suck recapping our new, our new newsletter, the third edition, volume one, number three over on LinkedIn. It's called the podcast pulse. Thanks for tuning into podcast suck. Thanks for tuning in live here on YouTube and LinkedIn and Facebook and Instagram. I think we did all that right. If not, well, we're going to try again harder next time. If you have any questions about this video, questions about the newsletter, questions about podcasting, anything on the show, Please do hit me up. I hang out on Facebook, LinkedIn on and Instagram and over on YouTube. I do respond to each and every one of you lovely people. It is my pleasure until next time, friends, just get out there and do it. Just do it. Remember, remember that small little company that created that phrase that was for a reason that was for a reason. All right, before I go, the quick story behind that, as I understand it. It was the late 70s. Nike just got done with their big ad campaign. They were sitting with their ad agency. They were trying to figure out what they want to do next. And I think one of the ad agency people looked over at Nike, one of the Nike guys' workhouse, and said, man, you guys just do it. I'm told that's the story. And if it's not a true story, it should be. Thanks so much for tuning into this episode. We sure do appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you're subscribed to the show wherever you consume podcasts. It's a way to get updates as new episodes become available. If you feel so inclined, please leave us a review and share the show with someone you know should start a podcast or may already have one. And remember, podcasts suck if you don't have one. Until next time, friends.