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Deep Dive Dialogues with Dan Woerheide
Deep Dive Dialogues is a podcast that goes beyond small talk, offering insightful conversations for coaches, entrepreneurs, and anyone passionate about personal growth and building an online business. Hosted by Dan Woerheide, each episode explores real challenges in the coaching industry and the deeper values that drive meaningful change. Join us for authentic discussions and practical advice to elevate your coaching journey and business.
Deep Dive Dialogues with Dan Woerheide
Unlocking Success: Mastermind Secrets and Podcasting Insights for Entrepreneurs
In this episode, I’m sharing a couple of my biggest takeaways from Podfest—both the excitement and the overwhelm—and why knowing your “why” can make all the difference. I’ll also dive into the surprising stats on audio podcasts and how staying true to your message can help you stand out. If you’re curious about how to keep your momentum and truly enjoy the process, tune in for insights you won’t want to miss.
Plus a special opportunity for entrepreneurs committed to growth
My email: Dan@DanW.us
Welcome back to Deep Dive Dialogues. I'm your host, Dan Warheide, and if you're just joining us for the first time today, then welcome to Deep Dive Dialogues. I'm still your host, Dan Warheide, and I want to personally thank each and every one of you for listening and tuning in, if you will. I have a couple things that I want to cover with you today, and before I jump into that, I want to start with what I believe is an incredible opportunity if you're looking to take the next steps in your coaching, consulting or creative business working to build your business online however you want to phrase that but if you're an entrepreneur and you're committed to taking your business full time this year, or you're already full time self-employed and you're either not where you're at wanting to be most, or you're still craving bigger challenges, then this message may be for you. For you, If you've been searching for things like accountability, a real team or network of support that you can lean into and real results, then I think this might be for you as well. I'm talking about my brand new mastermind that I just talked about at the very end of my last episode. I just talked about at the very end of my last episode. Let's start with what it is that we're offering. So I'm looking for people who are willing to make a 12-month commitment. I believe in the power of community and the power of a small community mastermind community, if you will can be tremendous, but one of the things that makes it most beneficial is when people are more than willing to commit over a longer duration of time to be in relationship with every other member of the group, and the only way to do that, in my opinion, or the best way to do that, in my opinion, is to get in the minimum of 12 month commitment from people up front. Now, that said, the first six applications that I receive who complete a one on one interview with me, who then are invited to join, will receive their first three months zero charge, no strings attached, no expectation that you will continue for the remaining nine months of that 12-month commitment. However, if you do believe that it's a great fit for you after that and you would like to continue, and we believe it's a great fit after that and we would like you to continue, you'll receive an invitation. Great fit after that and we would like you to continue. You'll receive an invitation, Yours to say yes or no, but you will then continue on for the remaining nine months at $500 a month for the remainder of that commitment.
Speaker 1:Why do I think? Why masterminds? Let me just talk about masterminds for a second. Because I because, again, I believe in the power of a tight-knit community where each and every other member of that community is 100% dedicated to the success and support of each and every other member of that community. So I believe in a small mastermind community. I believe no more than 10 to 12 people is more than enough. Anything more than that, and I don't think that the individuals in that mastermind are getting the individual attention, the individual success factors that they can receive as a result of being a part of a great mastermind.
Speaker 1:I have been a part of some really great masterminds and I have adopted the lessons that I've learned in many of those places and some of the things that I've seen that I don't want to incorporate. I don't believe a mastermind, for instance, is a study group. I don't believe a mastermind is a place to receive group coaching from a single coach. It's truly each and every other member of the group supporting each and every member of the group to help you accelerate your success rate by harnessing the power of that group and of people who are just as driven as you are and are wanting to achieve the same levels of success that you are. Maybe they're different businesses, Maybe they're in a different place, but they're still wanting and desire to achieve the same level of successes and contribute to other people achieving those levels of successes. They really help to eliminate the guesswork, because you can get expert feedback, guidance and support from people who might have been where you are, may have experience in your particular challenges and can help guide you. At the very least, you can brainstorm together and come up with some really powerful solutions or potential solutions to a challenge, simply by combining the knowledge of every other member present. And then, of course, powerful connection, because you're surrounded by those goal getters who are pushing each other on a regular basis, meeting weekly to support each other, You're going to achieve new levels of success.
Speaker 1:So I already said, you know small groups, right? No more than 10 to 12 maximum, and that way everyone can receive the focused attention that they deserve. And that way everyone can receive the focused attention that they deserve and no one's simply a face in the crowd. Speaking of face in the crowd, I attended PodFest this past week. I'm going to talk about that here in a minute, so stick around, bear with me.
Speaker 1:What else do I want to share about the mastermind experience? I'll share this. If you're not familiar with a mastermind or what that experience is like and you'd like to talk through that, then I'm going to encourage you, if you fit the other criteria to apply, To apply. I simply ask that you send me an email to dan at danwus and put mastermind in the subject line and I'll reach out to you with an application link that you can fill out and we will have a one-on-one interview. If you simply would like to know more about what a mastermind looks like or what it is, then put that in your email and I will certainly help provide some more insights around that. Like I said, each and every application will receive a one-on-one interview. I want to do my best to ensure that you're a great fit for the community that we are creating and that I'm a great fit for you, as I will be facilitating this community, but I will also be participating just as much as you are. Let's see. I think I have covered all of that. So if you're serious about your growth this year, then I'm going to encourage you to send me that email, dan, at danwus, so I can send you that short application and we can get you scheduled for your one-on-one interview.
Speaker 1:All right, let's talk about my experience with podcasts. I'm going to talk about PodFest in particular. So PodFest 2025 is in the books. I did not attend the full weekend, but I did attend a couple great days and I had a great experience overall. What I'm going to share with you, I don't want to take anything away or make it seem like there's an overall negative tone about my experience. I want to put that up front because, no matter what I share with you next, the connections are always a rewarding component of attending a live event, whether it's PodFest or another event.
Speaker 1:Right, If you can simply choose to attend one event each year to explore something different or step outside of your comfort zone, then I would absolutely encourage you to see what's on the calendar this year. What could you attend that might challenge those boundaries for you, that might push you outside of the norm and get you into a different space. Maybe that's a trigger for new creativity. I know that it certainly is refreshing for me in some aspects, but let's talk about that. So, first of all, fear of missing out and overwhelm it's if you didn't attend.
Speaker 1:You've heard about Podfest, maybe, but you chose or did not attend, for whatever reason. You can potentially feel like you've missed something incredible. And let me just say, with so many tracks and simultaneous events happening, it can be both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, you get a variety of topics and potential meetups and all kinds of other great experiences, but on the other, it can be a tremendous challenge to decide what sessions to attend, whether to divide your time. So for me, on one of the first days I chose to attend the Military Creator Con as a veteran, to connect with my veteran community and see what they're doing in the world of podcasting and writing and some of the other great experiences I heard about this week. But to have that event concurrently with PodFest seemed like an obstacle to me. So that leads me to talking about more the event structure itself. You know that I think is a major hurdle We'll call it a hurdle versus an obstacle the having to choose between niche sub-events like Military Creator Con or the Christian Creators Conference that was going on in conjunction as part of PodFest but not part of the main focus of PodFest itself.
Speaker 1:They were completely separate tracks. They were completely separate entities for the most part, where you paid an additional fee to attend these niche sub-events. We'll call them so. I think that lends itself to being faced with a challenge, because it forces you to attend and make tough decisions. You know you might be thinking or feeling like you have to sacrifice other events that might align with your own personal goals to be able to spend time and connect with a specific community, or vice versa, right? I think there are benefits to be gleaned if organizers were to reconvene and, in planning for future events, were to schedule these sub events on maybe separate days or extending the days of which the event occurs to incorporate these sub-events, and that would allow people the opportunity to maybe fully commit to each of the tracks of interest without feeling like they're being pulled toward two places at one time. In turn, attendees could have a deeper, more focused experience overall, maybe even leading to better networking opportunities and reinforcing implementation of the things that they do learn, Instead of the experience of trying to attend as much as possible and glean as many insights from as many sessions as possible. I think they could also benefit from toning it down just a tad right, I think, when you are.
Speaker 1:You know I don't know that all of these speakers are unpaid speakers at this event. I know that the majority of speakers are not paid to speak at the event and I also recognize that with so many different tracks concurrently running in separate stages throughout the event and I didn't count, but I know there were at least five to six, maybe seven to ten different stages who were concurrently running speakers pretty much most of the day. You know a few exceptions, like lunch and some other special events that they had ongoing where there was a bit more of a focus. But having so many options and so many different stages means also having a lot of different speakers and I think the potential impact to the level of presentation or the quality of speaker could be something that should be considered.
Speaker 1:I attended several different sessions and I will give full credit that these speakers that I attended did offer a strong presentation and were overall great speakers presentation and we're overall great speakers. But I heard some feedback about different people attending different segments of the event who did not have the same opinion or experience. Again, I only attended a handful of sessions, when I say a handful, less than a handful. So I only attended three or four official sessions and much of my time outside of that was spent in the hallways connecting, learning, hearing other people's stories, finding out where they were in their journey around, podcasting, talking about the challenges keeping them from taking action to create a podcast, especially when they said well, I've really been thinking about this, helping them dig into what that looks like for them, and I had a lot of fun doing that and I did.
Speaker 1:I spent a lot of time in those hallways in different conversations outside of these sessions, because I have found that's one of the best places just to create your own experience, so to speak, and I you know, no matter how you choose to consume events, I encourage you to find what works well for you. So I talked about the. I was talking about the potential benefits of considering some slightly different formatting for these, and I think I've hit that one as much as I want to. So clarity let's talk about clarity for a minute, Because one of the things I've taken away is in observing not just PodFest, but in several events and in observing the podcasting space, in particular, online, but this can apply to the coaching space as well. I see a lot of similarities in what is being presented and what is focused on in this space that I think it was worth talking about here today. So I'll frame this in the realm of podcasting. But again, I've seen the same thing in the coaching realm and I've received a lot of the questions that are very, very similar to what I'm about to share, and I've also heard from many people in different communities around coaching that some of these same questions right A lot of the sessions, from my observation and looking at the agendas are focused around what you might expect.
Speaker 1:They're focused around using your podcast as a sales tool, using your podcast as a marketing tool. You know really where they're focusing on how to enhance your sale, selling or enhance sales, or scaling your podcast, audience growth, downloads, et cetera and, of course, the never ending conversation of how do I make money from my podcast, and I think, while those may be valuable goals overall, I think what's mostly being focused on are results or the lag indicators that come from the foundational work that you're doing ahead of time to help maintain your momentum and truly enjoy the journey of creating. So if you're a podcaster and you are a coach, you know. Why are you podcasting? What is the purpose that you have found yourself? Found for yourself that you're creating a podcast or creating podcast content. And, by the way, there's nothing wrong with focusing on using it as a tool to sell for your business.
Speaker 1:I did not enjoy that experience in the previous shows that I've created. I wanted to create this podcast simply to enjoy the process of creating promote, not promoting creating and producing this show that I then share with you. And if you can benefit from even one segment of something I've shared, then that's truly a bonus to me. You know why I'm doing. It is about me. It's about tackling that white blank paper that you know writer's block syndrome, so to speak. And funny, I heard someone say and I wanted to challenge it but I didn't because it was a speaker talking about you don't get writer's block on a podcast, and I don't know what you call it. But yeah, if I sit down to try and plan an episode and, you know, think about all the things that I could potentially talk about, try to narrow down what I will talk about, then I find myself challenged with what I would only refer to as writer's block. It's like, oh, I'm so stuck. I don't even know what to talk about. So that's been my experience and maybe you can relate.
Speaker 1:The reason I'm creating this podcast is really to address some of those things within me and my own personal growth, and then I share it here with you in the hopes that maybe there's a nugget that you can take away that will impact the way you're doing business. So, again, just focused on really trying to enjoy the journey and I would encourage you to stay in touch with that. For you as well, what's going to allow you to create the podcast? If that's what you're doing, and continue to enjoy what you're doing so that it doesn't become burdensome or more like work right, If you do what you love, then you never work a day in your life. So getting clear on why you want to share your message in the first place, keeping that in the forefront, will help you to navigate some of the conversations as you start looking at how to improve processes to enhance your marketing efforts, or how to improve tidbits of your podcast to generate more potential subscribers or download numbers or all of the things you know money you know. How can you start incorporating more of the things that are going to help you sell for your business on your podcast. All of those things, though, at the end of the day, are the results. What are you going to do to change how you're showing up now to produce those results? That's really what I feel has been we'll call it lacking from many of these events, and the real focus is on the sexy things like scaling and monetization and gaining sponsorship, All of the things that can distract you from your original goals, ideas.
Speaker 1:A couple key tips to help you along the way here, just really quickly, or you know. Starting with key tip number one defining your core purpose. What is it that you care about deeply? What gets you excited when you think or talk about it? You know this level of clarity will help boost the energy that you have, and it makes showing up to work day to day more rewarding. Now, I'm careful about how I say showing up to work, but really, if you're working in your business and working on your business, then you're showing up to do the work that's going to produce the results that you desire. So getting that clarity will help you maintain that momentum and keep your focus.
Speaker 1:Key tip number two crafting a message that resonates. If you're genuinely passionate about something, then your enthusiasm is more than likely going to inspire your people, your audience. So build your content around stories that you have, the lessons you've experienced or the perspectives that connect directly to your purpose. Your given deeper focus. And then, like I already mentioned, key tip number three, focus on lead indicators. Instead of obsessing over those downloads or your revenues, which are, again lag indicators, hone in on the consistent actions that are going to help you to continue to build your show's foundation. Are you planning high quality episodes? Are you engaging with your listeners at all, one-on-one or otherwise? Are you focused on steadily improving your content? These are things that you can absolutely control and measure. You can't control your income from your podcast. You can only control things that will potentially negatively or positively impact the income you receive as a result. So hopefully that's helpful on the tips for clarity.
Speaker 1:Now let's talk about the opportunity there. Right? Why am I talking about podcasting today? I think that there's tremendous opportunity out there. The conversation has come up numerous times over the past couple months that I've observed about whether or not podcasting is crowded or oversaturated, and here's I'm going to give you some real truths here. Right Again, I think there's a huge opening, but I think there's a huge opening, primarily in the audio only space. There seems to be a huge push for people to go to what's called video first or video podcasting, right where they're sharing video and audio content of their recording and they're calling it a podcast because it founded is founded in the RSS feed in a lot of cases Though I challenge the terminology because there are a lot of video-only podcasts floating around on YouTube. I've talked to many creators who don't create audio-only content. They only create video for YouTube. I wonder if that's still a podcast by definition, Just a question.
Speaker 1:But let's talk about some stats real quick that are going to highlight the apparent gap in this community podcasting. That may entice you to reconsider if you've thought about it but decided it was saturated as an example. So I already talked about video podcasts being the current push and the current trend. 2,743,000, almost 744,000 podcasts exist today. Let's remind you that there are 8 billion people in this world 8 billion and we're talking about 2.7 and a half million total podcasts. Now, only 381,000, 381,000 podcasts that are currently active. Of those active shows, only 34,900 are considered established and, in accounting for this, that means that they are producing 95% of the listenership in the podcasting space and it also means that they have released more than 100 episodes and continue to embrace improvement, steady improvement. In the last month, this was reports from January. So in the last month, the percentage of shows likely to reach 100 episode milestone dropped from only 6.52% to 4.8%. That means that there are 47,000 fewer podcasters who are going to stick it out long enough to hit their 100.
Speaker 1:What does that mean? That means that there is room for you, hands down. If you're willing to show up, to be consistent, to continuously learn and stay in love with your topic, you can be successful in the podcasting space. Let's see here. So I think. Yeah, so you know events. I talked about the events. I talked about the mastermind. I really think that's it for this week, y'all. Look, I am in my new office. There may be a slight echo this week because I don't have any pictures on the wall and we have wood floors, so I'm working on study improvement here in the office, but that's the gist of it. Thanks for bearing with me.
Speaker 1:If you listened to last week's episode, I did not trash it and I actually received some positive feedback about that approach and what I did, basically out of necessity. I got some really great feedback, people who loved it. That said, I want to invite you to send me your feedback. You can if you're listening on your whatever device. I know for sure Apple podcasts bear with me. If you're not an Apple user, and that's okay, I don't mind.
Speaker 1:But if you look at the top of this show on your podcast player, you should see a button where it says you can text me, Send me a text, I'll get it. I'll reply to you, shout you out on the show. Make sure you leave your show's information. If you want me to plug your show or whatever you're working on, I'm happy to share that information. As a result, or in exchange for you sharing that feedback with me Good, bad, indifferent I'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 1:Secondly, if you haven't yet subscribed or followed this show, then I would absolutely encourage you to do that. You know, depending on your podcast player, you can hit the subscribe button or the follow button and you'll be able to continue to get updates when these episodes are published. You can connect with me about the mastermind. Send an email to dan at danwus and put the title or the subject line as mastermind and I'll send over that application for you, but that's how you're going to stand out, that's how you're going to stay consistent and ultimately find success in the podcasting world. And if you want to find success in your world and your business, I absolutely encourage you to consider the new mastermind that I am launching. With that said, thank you so much for hanging out with me today. I look forward to coming back and seeing you again next week. Have a great one.