Podcasting Momentum - The Marketing Flywheel for your Businesss
Welcome to Podcasting Momentum, the show that helps business owners and marketing managers like you get to the heart of what makes a podcast successful. In each episode, we will do a deep dive with fellow podcasters to uncover the real stories behind their shows. We skip the small talk and get straight to the actionable advice that will help you gain traction and build a loyal audience with your podcast.
From the origin story of a show to the technical challenges and strategic pivots along the way, we'll give you an inside look at how real podcasters build momentum. You'll learn how to overcome common mistakes, create engaging content, and turn your podcast into a powerful business asset.
We focus on the topics that matter most, including:
- The Origin Story: Discover why people start their podcast and the specific problem it was designed to solve.
- Overcoming Challenges: You will learn how podcasters navigate technical hurdles, audience growth issues, and even major life changes that could get in the way.
- Audience-Centric Content: We will help you understand how to provide real value to your listeners, making them a part of your journey, not just a metric. This is where they turn into customers, not just downloads.
- The Business Impact: Explore how a podcast can be a powerful tool for your business and lead to new clients and opportunities. It's not just about an audio file that you're sharing. This is audio, video, reels, blogs, emails, and more!
Your podcast can be one of your most powerful marketing tools. It's a way to establish yourself as an expert in your field, build trust with your audience, and create a continuous stream of content for your entire marketing ecosystem. From the core audio and video content to repurposed blogs, social media posts, email newsletters, and more, a single conversation can power your content for weeks.
Ready to level up your podcast? We've got you covered. Sign up for a free 30-minute no pitch podcast consultation with Josh and his team to get personalized feedback on your podcasting journey. You'll walk away with actionable tips on improving your camera and microphone setup, and how to structure your show for maximum impact.
Podcasting Momentum - The Marketing Flywheel for your Businesss
Done Is Better Than Perfect: Dr. Jake Clendenning on Why Most Podcasts Fail (and How to Fix Yours)
You’ve got the mic, the lighting, the guest with 12 titles… but your podcast growth? Not matching the effort you’re putting in.
Turns out, it’s not your setup, it’s your strategy.
In this episode, Josh Troche sits down with executive coach and podcasting pro Dr. Jake Clendenning to break down what actually drives podcast visibility and listener engagement. Spoiler alert: It’s not more gear or another “perfect” edit. It’s about asking better interview questions, understanding audience targeting, and mastering the unsexy details like SEO for podcasters, episode titles, and show descriptions.
This is must-listen material for business owners, marketing managers, and content leads who want to use podcasting to grow their brand, boost their marketing, and monetize more effectively. Dr. Jake shares how he’s grown his own show to over 100+ episodes by focusing on podcast consistency, YouTube optimization, and podcast branding that connects with real listeners, not just algorithms.
You’ll hear actionable podcasting tips, including why “done is better than perfect” can accelerate your podcast growth, how optimized episode titles and podcast thumbnails can 10X your views, and smarter podcast marketing tactics that go beyond just dropping a link. You’ll also learn content repurposing strategies to expand your reach, how to ask deeper, curiosity-driven interview questions to boost engagement, simple podcast monetization methods that work before you have a huge audience, and where video podcasting fits into a successful podcast strategy.
This episode is what you need to build a show that not only looks and sounds polished, but gets results.
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Josh Troche: Five actionable things. That is what I got from this week's episode. Dr. Jake Clendenning came on the episode. He's an elite executive coach. He's got a podcast and they frankly done amazing. There are about 100 or so episodes in, and I'm really excited to dive into that conversation so you guys can hear it. Additionally, if you are watching the podcast, instead of just listening, you're like, what the heck is Josh wearing? Stay tuned to the end. I'll explain.
Josh Troche: Dr. Jake Clendenning, thanks for being on the show. So you are an elite executive business strategist. And I had to say that slowly, because anytime I put two words back to back like that, I always stumbles. And I didn't want to. I didn't want to mess that one up for you on the way in. You're the CEO of Total Disruption, and you make a statement that I absolutely love. It's that curiosity overcomes conflict.
Josh Troche: So, like, how does the Total Disruption podcast serve as that platform to kind of demonstrate and teach that because you and your host, co-host Michael, you guys go back and forth on a lot of stuff? So yeah. How does the Total Disruption podcast kind of kind of emulate that and demonstrate it to people as you're trying to move things forward?
Dr. Jake Clendenning: Well, the reality is it's actually remarkably easy to do. I didn't well, I should say simple. Not easy is how I should state that is. It's remarkably simple how we move that forward. So you're right. It's it's about being curious. And the easiest way for us to be curious is to ask questions. There's nothing wrong with asking questions. It's actually the right way to approach most things in the world if we want to actually know more about it and we want to, and we want to dig deeper into that.
Dr. Jake Clendenning: So there's in the coaching universe, there's a there's a, it's not an acronym necessarily, but there's a kind of a methodology that people talk about all the time. And it's the difference between snorkeling and scuba diving, right? Snorkeling, you're going to be up there, paddle around on the top of the water, and you can see the fish down there low. And there's stuff, you know, at a distance, and you understand a sense of what's going on in the water around you. But when you're scuba diving, you're free diving, you're going deep. You're getting all the way down there, you're getting immersive into it and you're, you know, and there's more risk involved in going deep with that. That's the real power in the curiosity statement is you've got to you've got to be able to risk asking a question in such a way that you're going to get an answer you probably wouldn't have ever gotten otherwise.
Dr. Jake Clendenning: So that's that's how we do that is we we always talk about going 3D. Now that's Mike and I's thing is you got to go 3D if you ask the first question and that'll get a snorkeling answer. Then you ask another question about what they responded to. And you ask another question. You ask another question. We got to get to scuba. So that's the that's where that curiosity piece gets to.
Josh Troche: I love that. And to me it it's applicable not only in the the coaching world or the leadership world, but it's also very much in the podcast world because we always talk about like, okay, we asked you a couple of questions in advance, just so we've got some baseline stuff. That way I can be educated as an interviewer. And in that way too, I'm asking those scuba level questions, or at least but below the snorkel. If you're snorkeling at this level, you're you're taking in a lot of water.
Josh Troche: Is but it's those deeper, deeper level questions. The other thing that I like about that is the way you guys approach it too, is like from the conflict standpoint, it very much is instead of asking a question and then listening to the answer to like, argue the answer, it's listening to the answer to ask another question on purpose. And that to me is, truly. I mean, it's it's an unbelievable thing that so many people don't do. Well, myself included. I'm going to I'm going to go watch more of the podcast. So to say.
Dr. Jake Clendenning: When you truly do, we listen to respond like that's a that's one of those other things we listen to respond versus listening to understand and to your point to that is you just have to ask more questions. That's why we started like before this, we were having a conversation and you're asking me a few questions to get the baseline. Now, if we just stuck at the baseline, how great a podcast episode three and a half a right? It's going to be okay. People are going to know a couple things about me. They're going to know you, ask a couple of questions. And yet it's not what the listeners are really hunting for. Like they want some of that conflict. They want a deeper answer. They want a, you know, when we think about this from a listener's perspective.
Dr. Jake Clendenning: And the reality is and I look at it this way with, with podcasting, especially in just about everything that I do, it's all about relationship chips. It is all about the relationship. The only way that we're going to have a actual relationship, we're going to create a connection, is we're going to have to ask deeper questions. We're going to have to ask bigger ones. We're going to have to go further, because then then the person you're asking the questions to and here's here's a little masterclass for hosts for you. For the second is if you want to make the guest feel like it's all about them, ask questions all it is right, because then it's all about them, and then they feel heard.
Josh Troche: I totally agree and I ask the the what I always like to say is those second and third level questions with this. This very much the same as you guys. And it's to me the it's dawning. It just kind of dawned on me that very different areas coaching and podcasting, but in the same sense that it's the same thing, the same exact thing applies. That I truly love that you started this to grow your audience. I mean, that's why so many people start a podcast. They want they want to reach more people. They want to talk to more than just the person sitting in front of them across the room.
Josh Troche: Did you say, like, look, this is the specific people that were targeting with this or did you start to figure that out later? Or like, what was your mindset going into that? Because you're you've got a you're talking about you and Michael talk about things in a disruptive manner, like, let's shake this up and let's talk about the awkward things, which I love. And you guys talk about them in a presentable way. But once again, who is that for? And is that intentional?
Dr. Jake Clendenning: It is intentional. That's absolutely true. The the who has I wouldn't say evolved. I would say the fact is we didn't know who we were talking to in the beginning when we first starting this, we had not customized an avatar created. You know, we hear about that all the time, you know, particularly for an entrepreneurial space. Who's your perfect client? I personally hate that statement. I think it's a terrible question, but that's just me. So we. But there's some truth in it, right? There's there's truth within the lines of what that cloud says.
Dr. Jake Clendenning: So when I so this is actually my second podcast that I started. My first one was a solo that I did, and it was it was called Embrace the Suck. And it was just all about doing the hard things that we know we have to do to get to the great things. And I did, I don't know, I think I did like 135 short form episodes that were just me talking about stuff is that I did, my viewership was, pretty much like my mom is essentially what it was like that that show was pretty much for me is what that was. I just had a message to get out, and I and I shared it and there it was.
Dr. Jake Clendenning: So. So when Michael and I started Total Disruption and we marched down this road, we said, okay, we we have to pick an audience this time. We actually have to choose who we're going to reach out to. So like and it's pretty easy ish to do when you, you know, go, okay, I'm going to host my podcast on Riverside or Simple Cast or, you know, wherever I'm going to post it, they're going to ask you what category that your podcast is in. Well, you're going to have to ask yourself some questions right now. What am I really talking about? What am I addressing with. So we and you've got to answer those questions.
Dr. Jake Clendenning: So we we marched down the road of, you know okay, we're a little bit of personal development. We're a little bit of professional development. We're a little bit disruptive in some business practices. And we are also talking about very traditional things, methodologies that we need to do. So once we once we defined what we do we then you go, okay, who needs to hear this? Who are the people that needs to hear it? Well, the easy button is everybody, but you can't reach everybody. That's not a marketable place to look. It just doesn't work.
Dr. Jake Clendenning: So you have to break it down a little bit. We cheated on this one a little bit, and we said, all right, let's go listen to some other podcasts. Let's listen and let's see who their audiences are and find out if those the people were speaking to. So we did some guest appearances and we're still doing them obviously. To just be able to broaden our audience. And greatest part about podcasting is the fact that there are so many of us, we can cross collaborate and we can we can build each other, and it's awesome that way. But so that's where we started to develop our audience and really build into that space.
Dr. Jake Clendenning: And now we've got we're enough episodes through it. Now we're in season two, of of the Total Disruption podcast, plus the battleground episodes as well. So we're at like, I don't know, we're over 100 or so episodes. I think there's 300 and some episode, 350 something total that's on the YouTube channel. But, now we've got analytics. Now we have analytics that say that we can go and look and who's actually listening to our show, who are the people that are actually listening. So we can now we're at the point where curating a little bit of what our content is, what are what does our audience want to hear? What do they want to hear us bantering about? So we're able to do that? So it's I would call it evolutionary is is how audience wise has gone across.
Dr. Jake Clendenning: We started with the demographic. We were wrong. But not like we nailed it first day. We just said, you know, that that didn't happen. And that's fine. You know, we we get that, you know, how do we there's there's a great quote in one of the Batman movies. I don't remember which one. Where. Alfred I think it's actually Batman Begins, as I recall, the Christian Bale on, where Alfred says, why do we fall so we can learn to pick ourselves back up? Same thing like go out, fail, break it, you know, figure out what you did wrong so that you can. Then we know how to do it right.
Josh Troche: I love that it's funny. And you did a great job of moving straight into the second section for me, because you have a quote that you left saying the platforms are an algorithm and regardless of how good your content is, you still need to copyright for that algorithm. It's finding that audience and it's finding the people that connect with that.
Josh Troche: The the thing that's funny about this is so I wrote these questions out about I started looking at these. We're recording this on what is today. It's a Wednesday. I started doing this on a Thursday. You guys recorded an episode on Sunday where you talked about going back and having to change some thumbnails, change some titles, and look at things like that. And so to me, have you guys found value in doing that and has it helped in terms of building that audience?
Dr. Jake Clendenning: Yeah, 100%. And there's there's there's some of the stuff that that we fight like there's when we start as a podcaster, when we first get into this, this, I mean, you can call it a business. All right. Well, let's go that way. When we first get into this field, we want to get our message out. And sure, we're a little bit clunky. Maybe we need a little work on an interview skills. Maybe we need a little work on our content delivery in our. And so, the different practice. You said you've got a voice coach coming on. I'm listening to that episode. That's going to be awesome.
Dr. Jake Clendenning: So you have to kind of curate. Well, then you got to start looking at your numbers because the when it comes down to whatever platform you're using does not matter. Right? It just it does not matter. There's no I'm not going to promote one over the other. But let's let's play YouTube today for fun. Sure. If you're going to, if you're going to march down the YouTube platform and you're going to do video, podcasting. Sure. Quality video, absolutely quality content, what everybody will tell you, quality audio, what everybody will tell you. Those three things are great. They're not going to drive viewers. Those are not going to drive viewers. That is that is simply a point in space with which to start.
Dr. Jake Clendenning: So we I initially started with rewriting and making the titles better. So I started there and I and I used AI to help me a little bit with that. I reached out to some other mentors. What do you think about this? What's the audience looking for? Did some different market research to try and find out. I went back to Mr. Beast videos and different things and like, what's the number one word that's being clicked on? What's the number one topic? And I started there and I and I watched our viewership tick, right. It moved. It wasn't a jump, but it moved. Right okay. That's a that's a piece.
Dr. Jake Clendenning: And then I got into the content and I started rewriting the show notes and show descriptions and show summaries, which are critically important. If you hear me say anything today that you take learn to write your shows summaries for SEO and I searchability so that the things can find you like learn to write them that way. It's not that hard. It's really not that that difficult to be able to do it. Use AI, be it, you know, to cheat. Right. Go in there, right. All the things, or pull the transcript and have it write you a summary. That's SEO optimized. Works great.
Dr. Jake Clendenning: So then we went back to your point on the episode where we're talking about a little bit on Sunday. One of the things I've never done, I always allowed whatever platform to grab whatever cover art or whatever funky face I made, you know, whenever you're doing it, as the thumbnail, I didn't put a lot of a lot of credibility into the thumbnail at the time. It wasn't something I paid attention to. Recently, I, I wrote a new program. I built a new bot, basically new. I bought two screws to scrub the transcript. And if you guys want this, reach out to me. I'll send you the prompt for the heck of it, because it's it was it took a little doing to get there, but it's working really well now. To where I will build me this prompt, I can go, here's the episode transcript, here's what I want.
Dr. Jake Clendenning: Here's my, now I've got it built. I don't have put all this in there, but here's my logo, here's my colors, here's the stuff that I want it to do. Write it for SEO optimization, write it to drive YouTube and viewers and Apple podcast viewers gave it this longer prompt. And so it builds me this cool and groovy little thumbnail that looks remarkably similar to every other thumbnail that's on YouTube. That's driving a ridiculous amount of traffic. And I have watched since. So Sunday's episode alone, with that thumbnail in the viewership in the last few days, we have seen probably a ten X on that. On our total views and downloads just in those few days by messing with the thumbnail.
Dr. Jake Clendenning: So it's so frequently such a simple thing to do that we just aren't doing. But back to that quote of, you know, you gotta, you gotta you have to run the algorithms. So we're, you know, we're both fortunate that we've got we've got VAs, we've got leverage, we get to do a lot of things, but we don't have to do a lot of things that other people are really good at. But there's, you know, there was a time we were a one man band, right? We were we were a one arm wallpaper hanger. We did all the stuff and all the things, everything. We had to touch it. You just have to decide what's most important to you and do one thing and one thing after the next, and then consistency and doing it. Like you can't put one thumbnail for 350 videos and think that you've got a data analysis range.
Dr. Jake Clendenning: You've got to literally go in there and go, okay, I'm going to do 100. Which we did, we did 100. And all of a sudden we saw those 100 podcast episodes, our, our downloads went up from wherever. They easily went up ten in a day simply by doing the thumbnails.
Josh Troche: That's and that's something that we've heard quite often with that, with that, once again, you're really good at these Segways for me.
Dr. Jake Clendenning: Unintentional, but thank you.
Josh Troche: It's, this is a big takeaway that you've had is. And I heard you say this in the last episode. I heard you say this 2 or 3 episodes ago that I was watching your guys's show done is better than perfect. And as soon as I. In fact, I like I'm watching you as I'm saying this, and I'm about a quarter of the way through it. As soon as I said done, you're like, ready to ready to finish the sentence, which I love. What's been times when you've said done is better than perfect. You've thrown it out there and like, give me a short example of when done is better than perfect, has turned out amazing or done is better than perfect. Has turned into a poop storm?
Dr. Jake Clendenning: Well, there's probably far more examples of the second one, than there are of the first one. But that and that's okay. So I when I refer to done is better than perfect is so many of us get caught up in this torrent of it's got to be perfect before I let it go. Right before I turn it out. And I'll spend an obscene amount of hours going through editing and making sure this is right and making sure that is right. And I'll. And I'll cut a killer intro and I'll call it killer outro. And I'll make the greatest thumbnail ever. And I'll make sure the sound mixing for the music is just perfect in the background. And that's all great. Like that's all great. It's all awesome stuff. And if nobody's going to see it, did it really happen? Right? It's a tree that fell in the woods. Did anybody actually hear it so that so when I say done is better than perfect there's there's different spots, especially in podcast sting.
Dr. Jake Clendenning: And I've heard this said from, from several different people that do it is don't release your podcast until you've got ten episodes in the hopper is one of them. And there's a reason for that. But the other part is now you're going to start to get comfortable moving forward with things. If you get so hung up on this, one thing's got to be so perfect. It's not going to be so. So to your to your point I've done is better than perfect. You know what's turned out. What's of great and what's been the crap storm on the other side.
Dr. Jake Clendenning: Battleground. So Battleground is a offshoot of our Total Disruption podcast show. So we, we languished on a long time, a lot longer than we should have, trying to create something even better than what it was. So we we we fought with it and fought with and fought with and fought with it and fought with it. And it did not benefit us like there was no monetary benefit, there was no increase in downloads. There was nothing. We could have released a talking Heads version of that, and it would have got the exact same amount of downloads as it did anyway.
Dr. Jake Clendenning: The interesting part of when we released that and we got it was really close, the amount of viewership, and I just looked at it this morning and it kind of shocked me, actually, because it hasn't, like our initial pilot episode of that one had like it had horrible views, like it was just terrible. It like nonexistent on YouTube. It was fine on our TV network and on our podcast network, but on YouTube, I think it had like 86 views is what it had on there for this episode that we spent a lot of money and a lot of time trying to make perfect, and it just had almost no views.
Dr. Jake Clendenning: So I go back. I fixed the thumbnail last week. I changed the thumbnail. It had went from 80 some views. It had 9300 views. This morning on YouTube I fixed a thumbnail like that's all I did and it had nothing to do with I had to go back and because we've gotten some feedback from some different people, you know, rerecorded in this way, change the way the audio looks, change the video, redo, redo, redo, redo. And we had this massive uptick in views across YouTube in a couple of days because I changed the thumbnail. All I did was make a different title.
Josh Troche: So when we titles. Matter.
Dr. Jake Clendenning: Done is better than perfect. Like, man, you just sometimes you just have to get it done. You just it just needs to go out. And the reality is perfection is unattainable for is unattainable. It just came naturally in podcasting. Oh, especially in podcasting. Yeah. Can't be done because you're gonna have technical issues. You're going to have to pick your thing that's going to get in your way. There's plenty of them.
Josh Troche: And it's so funny because I, with so many people that we work with in coaching, like podcasting, in that we see it so often where people are like, oh, my hair's a little bit, who cares? I, I've had people like, yeah, I want to do the podcast. I need to lose 10 pounds first. I'm like, no one cares, nobody cares. First off, the first ten episodes your mom is watching, she's going to love you no matter what. Even with the extra 10 pounds, she's probably okay with it. She's probably the one that put them there. So we talk about stuff like that all the time. With that, you've got the audience you're working with, the algorithms. What's the future for the channel for total disruption? I'm curious. And where you want to see this go?
Dr. Jake Clendenning: You know the future for total disruption. We can all say we want to be Joe Rogan. Right? And I was reading a great article about Joe the other day in, in his startup, which if you did, you should go read that like the audience should go read that one on his starting it up in the garage and just how he ran through that. He just got offered, what, 20 or 200 million from Spotify for his for his podcast. So not bad.
Dr. Jake Clendenning: Yeah, it's not bad. It's pretty good. And so we all want to say we want to be there, right? We all want to say I want to be Joe Rogan. Okay, cool. Do you really, you know, and the and the reality of that for this particular for our podcast. Do I want to get there. No, I don't think I actually do want to be Joe Rogan in that particular space. What I want from this particular podcast and it's starting to happen. I had I had a guest. I want it to the point to where guests of a caliber are going to be calling me, and they're like, man, I love that last episode. I just want to be on your show and come talk about this.
Dr. Jake Clendenning: Because guess what happens when you have epic guests show up on your show? They bring their audience with them. Yep. Oh that's terrible. You're going to you're going to bring me your 20,000 downloads per episode. I suppose if you want to do that, that's where I want to get to. And it's starting to happen right now. I'm not going to say organically is where you're coming from because we're we've been really purposeful in making sure that we are everywhere. We are everywhere. We're consistent in our posting on social media. We're consistent with our email marketing. Our episodes always go out same day, same time, like consistency in that, as I've been told from countless amazing podcast host is the absolute key.
Dr. Jake Clendenning: But I had a I had a guest, Steven Perry reached out to me and he is he's the former president, executive president, CEO of Sony and Dreamworks. Like Steven is a rock star when it comes right down to it at the industry level in business. And he reached out to us. He reached he reaches out and he calls me one day and he's like, I just like what you guys are talking about. And I've got a cool thing that we're doing. I would I'd love to be on your show. Like, sure, I want more of that. Like, that's fancy, organic, like the room changes. The people that are in the room with you changes when you're in the room with a bigger player.
Dr. Jake Clendenning: We were talking about this even before of there's. You can tell who's there for me and you can tell who's there to collaborate. And this is one of those spots that when you get those phone calls like that feels good and that knows that's when you know you're marching down the right road towards the right kind of monetization for it. Because yes, it's wonderful to help everybody. There's nothing wrong with getting paid to do it. That is perfectly okay. You have to give yourself permission in that.
Josh Troche: Correct? I love that. That's it's so funny how you say that, because it very much is okay to get paid for that. Very much. The signature closing question that I love to ask everyone is if you've got one piece of advice for someone that's just starting out, whether it's business owner, marketer, or maybe it's a CEO that's looking to do an internal podcast, what's that one piece of advice that you're going to give someone up front?
Dr. Jake Clendenning: With exception to the internal podcast, this would be a little bit different. So with the other ones I would say monetization plan have a monetization plan right away. That doesn't mean go out and get Nike, Adidas, whoever sponsors. That may not be happening. And that's cool. And yet there are a bunch of cool methodologies that you can use.
Dr. Jake Clendenning: We started with, we started with programs that we sponsor, and basically a subscription model is how we started. In order to be able to give back to those programs you sponsor. So a subscription model is great. Affiliate market is a wonderful place to start because there's lots of wonderful affiliates out there that would love to pay you to help promote their products. And it looks just like a sponsor. Looks like it smells like it tastes like it shows up the exact same way. And you get paid off of sales that you can get there. There's lots of ways to create a monetization strategy for your podcast, until the point to where your big enough that you can reach out to the bigger hitters and say, hey, I'd love for you to pay me $100,000 this year, to be able to input you on the podcast as a sponsor. Absolutely. Build up to that. But there's lots of ways to monetize.
Dr. Jake Clendenning: Now, the, the corporate, that's a good one. And you threw that out. You threw that one in on me because that one's a different model altogether. We talked a little bit. This is the advice I'd give those guys. It shows not about you. If you are the corporate podcast guy, the corporate trainer, whatever that piece is. And one of my favorite coaching books prospers. Coach Rich Litvin wrote it. It's not about you. If you get up on that show and you say, well, what can I do for my people today? That's good, right? It's not the wrong question. It does come from a servant's heart. Reframe it a little bit. What does my audience need today? What does my audience need? It's going to force your brain to show up differently, and you're going to show up differently when it's not about you. Your audience is going to show up differently.
Josh Troche: I absolutely love that. We've talked about that, and we preach that all the time on our podcast. To me, that's that is a great way to leave it off. Thank you very much for the time today. I appreciate all the advice. I know our listeners do too. And, do me a quick favor. Tell people where they can find you.
Dr. Jake Clendenning: Well, you can find us at Dot. Total dash little hyphen, total-disruption.com. That is the primary website. You can find all the website, all the expat old podcasts everywhere you want to do it. Find us on all the social media channels. If you want to connect with me directly, you can go to getmybearings.net, getmybearings.net. That's my, that's my author website. So you can get hold of me directly in direct email, or you can find me on social media. I am not hard to find. Absolutely. Reach out and, connect with me, shoot me a DM and say, hey, I saw you on, I saw you on Pebble Stomper, and I'd love to connect with you. I'd love to help you any way that we can.
Josh Troche: Awesome for everyone, Dr. Jake Clendenning, thank you. And I will be right back after this, short message. So that way we can talk about some actionable tips.
Josh Troche: It's always interesting when we have coaches and people like that on, because some of them give some of the fluffy, feel good stuff. Doctor Clendenning definitely. He's not that guy. He's someone that's going to give you like good actionable steps. And I truly appreciate that. And that's one of the reasons why I was excited to have him on the show.
Josh Troche: The first thing that we're going to talk about that was actionable from this, the go three deep on the questions and something we coach all the time, it's something we talk about all the time. That first level question is something that you should be asking off the air. Ask that before the show. Those are the those are the base level questions that basic information that you should already have. It's the second and third questions. Those are the ones that really are adding like meat to the story. Those are that's where the story is. That's where the interesting stuff is.
Josh Troche: Tell people the stuff that you got answers for in the first questions. Tell people that that way you can get right into those second and third question is I love the the difference between snorkeling and scuba diving. Great analogy on that. Make sure that you're able to spend the time and go deep enough into what people are doing, that you can ask those better questions of them. Huge for making sure that your podcast is informative for the people that you want to hear it.
Josh Troche: Second off, optimize those show summaries and descriptions as well as well. We'll talk about that in a second. Can leave you in suspense. The shows, descriptions and summaries it. There's a constant evolution that's changing with this, and we're actually shopping for some new tools that will help us in doing this. It's making sure that you have the right words in there, the right descriptions in there. It's making sure that you are able to get sound via the text that you have.
Josh Troche: Now. Part of that is in the transcriptions, making sure you're saying the right things, but really the description, that's where YouTube, that's where the podcast programs, that's where Google, that's where ChatGPT, that's where perplexity. They are looking at those things to decide what to show. It's all about getting found in that I search nowadays and I search is still an SEO type of thing. So let's make sure that you've got the right information there. So that way we can push that forward for you.
Josh Troche: Additionally, thumbnail optimization, it's an art. It's something that that I mean changes over time. So don't be afraid to go back and change some of the thumbnails, update some of the thumbnails, change some of your descriptions, and work with things in order to make sure that you've got the right idea for your thumbnails.
Josh Troche: The one that I want to go. The two that I actually want to go further, further into, one of which is done is better than perfect. This is something that we run into all the time with people where they're like, hey, I want to start a podcast, but I need to, I need to be better at this or I need to do this better, or I need to it. You you are going to learn a lot of this as you go. It's like it's like anything else. It's like weightlifting. It's like riding a motorcycle. It's like golf. It's like knitting. You start out with a base level of skill to it and you build on it.
Josh Troche: I give some sports analogy analogies like LeBron James did not start out as a star basketball player. He worked really, really hard to do that. For those of you that are Michael Jordan fans, you know he didn't make his high school basketball team. He worked really, really, really hard in order to level up those skills. So when you're starting your podcast, you've just got to get it done. You start, you give it that baseline, and from that baseline you're then able to build.
Josh Troche: Now you've got to make sure that you are looking at ways to get better each week. But it's that baseline that you start at. Just get it done. You're not going to be like the world's greatest host the first time out of the gate. Get it done. The other thing is, and this this is the theme that we talk about so much. And this is why I love doing these actionable tips. At the end, we do this for you that this is you. Your podcast needs to be about your audience. It's not about you. It could be your knowledge. But once again, it's not you getting your knowledge out for your sake. It's you getting the knowledge out for the people that want it, for the people that need it.
Josh Troche: If you're doing interviews, it's to help the guests that you have on get that that that message out there. It's to help them get that visibility that they that they need. It's it's once again, your podcast isn't about you. It's about your audience. It's about making sure that you are doing this in service of the people that you are trying to reach.
Josh Troche: I love when he said, what does my audience need today? That's huge. What what does my audience need to hear today? It's something that I absolutely love and it's something even I and I get to make a better effort on. So do me a favor. Tell me what you need to hear. Tell me what skills you would like to hear more about. Tell me what you would love to learn about because that is what I want to do.
Josh Troche: Speaking of which, at the beginning of the episode, like I said, I'm I'm wearing some different clothes today. Normally you guys are going to see me in the black shirt with the the logo on it. And, the red stripes on the side. And today I am in a suit. No tie, but a suit. Why? Well, occasionally I'm in rooms that, need something a little more than a than a than a polo shirt. I actually presented on some stuff this morning. Typically, typically when I'm presenting to an audience, especially anymore, I want to look good. So we decided to step it up this week with a suit. Yes. If you're just listening to this. I said that right. A suit you need to go over and watch this, watch the podcast for that. Right? Yeah.
Josh Troche: Nonetheless. Hey, do me a favor. Take care of yourself. If you can take care of someone else, I will see you very, very soon.
