364 - Boring Content & Big Breaks That Go Nowhere

0:05 Good morning podcasting Morning Chat. Today is Thursday, September 4th, 2025, And today we've got more podcasting news you'll want to hear. Like why listeners say your show just Be might just be boring. And what happened when an author landed a dream guest spot and got crickets. And so if you're listening live on Clubhouse's share button, bottom left hand side of the screen and share it. However, Clubhouse lets you. And if you're listening via podcast, please share this episode with a fellow podcaster. And now give us about 30 seconds and we'll get things rolling. Thanks for being here.

1:20 Good morning again podcasting morning chat. Thank you so much for being here. I am your host Mark Ronik and on stage with me my Co hosts we have Nick Naul back producer Ashley Feller, Dr. Fay, Matt Bliss and Sid Meadows and a hello to Dave in the audience. Dave Campbell welcome thanks for being one of our well not one of thanks for being the first one here. Bright and early this Thursday morning seems to be a trend this week where we have zero or one or two people that kick it off and it just makes us smile It just because it's just a weird anomaly. I feel like this week and it's totally cool. We know that the room fills up and people participate in the chat.

2:07 They come up here on stage and that's what makes this show go round. So yesterday we had so many news stories that we had to get to them today, especially because there's a couple of interesting pieces to get through and discuss. So I think this is a great one to start with. It kind of feels like an icebreaker a little bit. So I'll set it up for you and then we can go to the, I'll call it the icebreaker question. So the headline is, is your podcast quote just boring? End Quote A new national study by the Podcast Study revealed that one killer of podcasts at this year's Podcast movement.

2:50 That's where they made the announcement and surprisingly it's not your audio quality, it's your content. Listeners were brutally honest about why they bail early. 40% said the show was just boring and a third said it opened with meaningless chatter. And those weren't the only two brutally honest answers shared. I'm curious. And Dr. you're not allowed to play along cuz he answers in front of you. I'm curious if any I I'm wondering if anybody has any guesses as to maybe some other reasons. And again, audio quality ain't one of them. What are some other reasons you think this study revealed about why people bail from your podcast? Good morning, everybody.

3:41 I think it's because people have the attention span of a gnat now and it is a huge problem to create content is engaging. We're in Eclipse world where everything is a short. People don't want to play the long game. I think that's the biggest problem and that's not a podcast problem, that's a environment problem. And I just know this from Lucy and sports, more kids have seen all these highlights of all these amazing players, but most games are boring compared to the highlights.

4:21 So why did they get to that position? They don't want to know that it's the same thing. It's just like, give me the Cliff notes or give me the best parts. And I think that's the biggest problem and it's a real problem. I'm not surprised by this at all. Yeah, it's one thing to do some soft shoe, but you got to pull something out of the hat that that's even better every week. I hear you, Alex, and this is fascinating to me. This is almost like a chicken or the egg situation. Here's why I say this. It's because, yes, I agree that today's society is very short on attention and we are so used to getting those quick hits, those quick dopamine hits, thanks to social media, thanks to TikTok and Reels and things like that. I totally agree.

5:10 And I think that it's easy for us as creators to use that as an excuse because let's face it, most podcasts, or I shouldn't say most, I'll just say many, many podcasts, all they're doing is the straight interview. And yours truly is included in this. When I do the one-on-one interviews, I don't do anything terribly special about it to try to keep the attention span other than making it an interesting interview as best I can. But I'm not doing a lot of other things. Other again, I'm doing little things here and there, but I'm not making that, you know, keeping people's attention with more than just the content itself. I'm not doing that.

5:56 I'm just doing a straight interview and I think that can get boring for. An audience. So what would you, what would you be doing? What? What's the other side of it that you would be doing? And that's the maybe the $1,000,000 question here or maybe the $1.7 billion question here, since that's what the current jackpot is for Powerball this coming Saturday. Yeah. Yes, it's boring, but you're coming into somebody's face and I use this term and it might not be politically correct, but we're all a bunch of washer women want to know the gossip. Sometimes the gossip isn't that exciting. I understand what you're saying, but I think it's that our tastes have changed and the shorts have kind of killed it.

6:40 And maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you're right. It's we're being quote UN quote lazy or whatever, but. I don't think we're being lazy and I don't think it. Doesn't. I don't think it has to be a dopamine hit every second. I agree with you there. I agree with you there. Let's hear from some of the others before I just hog the mic completely. Nick, I think I saw your hand up first and then we'll check in with Sid. Go ahead, Nick. Hey, good morning, everybody. So I think people are coming to content for mainly one of two reasons, for education and entertainment. If your show is entertaining from start to finish, you're going to keep people in. If you're coming for education, which is a lot of the content that I consume, whether it's podcasts, see good videos, audio bugs, books in general, I want to learn something.

7:28 And if I can learn something in a 32nd short that I could also learn in a 20 minute video, I'm going to choose the 32nd short because I have a lot of other things that I want to do or I want to start implementing now. And if I can learn that information much quicker, I'm going to take that option. I'm not going to sit around, listen to the monologue of 15 minutes before you get to the stuff that I actually care about and want to know. It's a balancing game. And it depends very much how your show is structured. I think a lot of the interview episodes are typically educational ways. If not, maybe they're interested in an individual, which at that point would be entertainment.

8:10 But yeah. Yeah, I, I'm with you there, Nick. I think that that's a fair. I was going to say assessment, but I can't think of a better word. So that's what I'm going to use. And yeah, I think that's fair. I think people are coming in. Yeah. If you can keep them entertained and give them education, I think that's a slam dunk. But yeah, if you are chit chatting for 15 minutes before you really get to the meat of it, that could frustrate some people. And that does happen, by the way. I know, maybe not with the people on this stage, but it happens a lot. And let's also be honest here, a lot of podcasters have 0 experience, not just podcasting, but being in front of a microphone. It's their first time putting themselves out there like this. And that can be challenging if you don't understand how to entertain or educate an audience. And I'm not saying it can't be done. I'm not saying that this is a problem across the board for all new podcasters.

9:09 But if you're only focusing on the bells and whistles, the technology, having the best microphones, if you're only focusing on those kinds of things, you're setting yourself up to be part of this 40% audience that says your podcast is just boring. Sid, what do you got for us? Good morning. To go back to the question why people think the show was boring, I think a lot of it has to do with the intro being too long. Reading a bio of somebody that you know. I mean listen, I love Mel Robbins and her podcast, but her intro is 6 freaking minutes long. It drives me crazy. And I think that's part of it too. Like this intro, this. And we talked about it in content like a hook, but maybe yes, she gives you a hook, but damn, she just goes on and on and on. And I think that causes people to bounce away from it when just like, and I've just caught myself saying out loud, listening, if I could just get to the conversation, get to the question.

10:05 I think jumping in and starting the conversation immediately has a lot of power behind it and not just going on and on in your interest. Thank you, Sid. I think that is on point, those intros, yeah. Jr. said something that's really interesting and it and it has to do with one word charisma because, and again, I'm not, I don't want to listen to a 6 minute intro either said. But I think if you have an established podcast and people, I think it works both ways. If you know there's a 6 minute intro, you can Fast forward through it. I'm not saying that you're going to, but I'm just saying like if you know their style and the way they do what they do, there's a lot of comfort to that. And I see both sides.

10:54 Something I'm I'm trying to play the of course it it's just like, you know, we have a certain way we do this room and I think people either like it for a while and then they don't like it or, you know, whatever. That's the thing that is really great. But you're right, get to the point eventually. I'm not saying you don't get to the point, but I think people's tastes have gotten so much shorter. Nick said it. We have the attention span of a gnat now. How many people have ever listened to Joe Rogan? I know Dr. has from start to finish. I mean, he's. Got shut up without my husband shut up. I'm just saying, I mean, he's got some long ass episodes. Do people actually listen to that? Maybe they do, but I know I've never listened to him. I've never downloaded it.

11:40 But I've seen more of his clips out there and I've just seen the good stuff, whether it's good or not. So I, I think it does have to do with a little bit of everything. And, you know, maybe you're just tired of the person. There could be lots of reasons and I'll share more of those reasons. I would just want to make sure. Did I miss anybody? Did anybody want to chime in and I might have missed you? OK, just me. Oh, go ahead, Dr., and then we'll go to Matt. OK, Oh shoot, I might have forgotten what I was going. To say, all right, I'll go to Matt. I'll go to. I brought up your boyfriend so that's why. Yeah, that's probably why. Let's go to Matt and maybe Dr. will remember while he's sharing. Go ahead, Matt. Good morning. Good morning. I was watching one of my well, soon to be hopefully close friends. I'm going to interview him on my podcast shortly. Valentin Farkhash in, I think he's in Vienna, he's a European creator.

12:31 He interviewed on his podcast recently, a YouTube strategist who's worked for a few big people. And he mentioned that there is a study that he's aware of that attention spans have actually been growing longer technically over the last 20 years. So I'm trying to source that right now. But I want to throw that out there for anyone who's still thinking the way that I admittedly would have a week or two ago, that attention spans are getting shorter again, leading to what I've mentioned in a on a session earlier this week. The intermittent schedule rewards the dopamine stuff that feeds our brain. If we can feed that faster, it's good, but it may not necessarily be causing attention spans to dip. Just one thing to think about.

13:19 The other thing that I wanted to mention is that boring is a very inflammatory but also often subjective term. I think we need to extrapolate further beyond boring. Something between defining what boring is and the actions we have to take to try and avoid that. I think we're hearing a lot of actions at the moment like shorter intros. Get the rizz, you know all these things that we can do. Please don't say that you're not old enough to. Say that. Please. Hey I I can deal with that already, no? I'm down with the kids. My wife's a teacher and I, he's cool with the kids.

14:00 Stop. So I'm cool. But yeah, those things, they're actions. But I think for us, defining boring is a really important thing. And in the context of the show, it also necessarily correlates to listenership. Is it boring to our ideal listener? And if that's the case, then that is a downward trajectory that you really need to try and pull up from. But if it's boring to someone who's going to wants to is exploring your podcast for the first time and isn't your ideal listener, do we really mind? Like I was even looking at trying to find someone's old podcast for the episode that I released on mine this week. It's called Alabaster's Haberdashery. Say that three times.

14:43 No thanks. And I saw a comment on Pod Chaser. Someone who read it may not have even listened to it, looked at it, looked at the description and said no, I don't think this podcast is very good. It says it has improv in it, and I don't like that. He would probably say it's boring, but they're not the kind of person you weren't listening to the show either. So I think the connective tissue between boring and the actions we take to make it less boring, I think that would be a really good discussion to have internally and with ourselves as well as having it here because it's hard to do it generally, but you know what I'm saying? Yeah. Thank you, Matt. And I'm very curious once you learn more about that study from your upcoming guest, I'm very curious to hear more about that. And I think I have actually heard about that as well. I think I have recently seen some headlines that say our attention spans are actually getting longer, which is shocking.

15:39 And to your other point, yeah, I agree with you saying boring is a little vague, doesn't really give us a lot, and it could mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. So I'll also share with you some other results that might be a little more specific and maybe really all falls under that just boring category. So for example, 33% said that the podcast started or starts with too much meaningless talk, which is something somebody brought up this morning, right? Those long meaningless talks. Yeah, that they start with it before they even get to the actual stuff we want to hear. We want to we want to be educated by 26% too much off topic talk. So again, same idea. 25% hosts keep repeating themselves, so that's a little different.

16:33 I don't know that I would put that under just boring, but I suppose it could fall under that. But in this study, it doesn't. 23% not enough interesting talk. 21% The discussion moved too slowly, which again might be why some people, some of those 40 percenters are feeling bored. 19% Definitely not boring under a boring category. 19% say hosts talking over one another, which I like to give us a pat on the back because you know, right now we have 7 people that have a microphone. And I think sometimes when I tell people about our show and the fact that we do it on Clubhouse, and those who have used or use Clubhouse, they'll kind of cock their head and be like, how do you manage that for a podcast? It's got to be chaos.

17:27 But we do a great job of that. So I'm proud of us. So Pat on the back to US, 16% say hosts referred to things you had no context for. And I think that's a challenge for us. I think we do that well. But being a Daily Show, I don't think that every listener is listening to every single episode, right? So I try to be mindful if somebody brings something up that we've talked about before, even whether it's on topic or off topic. If it starts to become a discussion, I want to make sure that a new audience member is up to speed. So I try to give out as a little bit of a back story to give more context.

18:11 And 15% say hosts were trying too hard to be funny. Very subjective, but if 15% say it, I guess it could be a thing. All right, anyone else want to add anything before I wrap up? Go ahead, Alex. I do, and this is to Matt, my bra. I got to go drop off my kid, so I don't know the other words. I'm supposed to do you, but goodbye. I'm not all up on it, but if you tell her that something is mid. I don't, no, we don't use that. She Bros me. I had a kid bro me in the in the class once. I'm like, dude, we don't do that. Yeah, no, I'm not. I'm not your bro. OK, it's retro right now.

18:53 It's retro. The other one that I'm hearing, I'm hearing all the kids say these days and it is a thing, is 6/7. I know 6-7. I don't know what that means. I. Don't understand what it means. What is that? I don't know. It's from a pointless rap song that nobody's ever heard that they've yet that they've decided to use as a as a slang calling card. Yeah. Googling it. Now I'm Googling it. Yeah, dude, I'm out. Bye. See you bro that 6 seven thing and I even my my former and soon to be again Co host his kids who are in middle school and elementary school.

19:34 They apparently say it. He's asked them to give them an A definition and they can't. They can't explain what it is or why they use it, which is fascinating. I got to share this with you. I went to Google and I typed in what does and immediately what does 6-7 mean. Came up interesting and all I did was type in what does. And what did you get? OK, in slang, 6-7 is a term used to tell someone to leave or go away. Often with dismissive or harsh tones. This usage likely comes from a numeric slang trend around the 2000s, possibly influenced by police codes or quick exit.

20:17 Interesting. OK, so it's like get lost. It's like get out of here. I don't want you around. You go away, Yeah. Fascinating. Well, there you go. Here's a bunch of old people talking about young people stuff. There you. Go get off my lawn, I'll. Tell you what, we definitely lost. If we had the a younger crowd, we definitely lost them because they're probably annoyed and like, who are all these old people? I'm sure of it. Matt, did you want to add something? I just want to show how refined my Google search thinks I am. OK, in the AI overview it tells me that in the 14th century the English phrase at sixes and sevens was from a dice game called hazard where to set on sink and seek five and six.

21:01 It's probably French stuff, but anyway, that's pretty refined, right? And another origin is from Hindu mythology. About me? That's horrible. From Hindu mythology, the number six and seven are symbolized by figures like the six armed 7 headed deity Vishnu representing a balance of cosmic forces. So I'm just throwing that out there. If you transcribe this, I'm hoping the Internet picks it up and it becomes, it proliferates a little bit. Maybe we can get the kids some culture beyond just the rap music. Well, I'm feeling very cultured because look, the fact that I even knew that 6-7 is a thing, I think that's a win for me because I don't have any kids that age anymore. They're all in their 20s now.

21:46 They're all the, the, I guess that's Gen. Z. I'm, I'm trying to get also up to speed on what generation is, applies to what age group, etcetera. God, I feel old. OK, I think we've exhausted that part of the conversation. And as I said, we have a lot of other stories and this next one is pretty interesting too. Dr. You want to take this one? So an author guested on one of the biggest podcasts around and crickets. Crickets. So author Amy, that's I was waiting for that. That's what I was waiting for. OK, So Amy Mcnee, I'm, I think that's the way she pronounces her name.

22:27 Mcnee, an author and creative coach, landed what most creatives consider, you know, the Holy Grail of exposure. It's a guest spot on Jay Shetty's On Purpose, one of the biggest podcasts in the world. So friends, publishers, even her Uber driver told her this was the moment she'd just blow up. But when the episode aired, the numbers of the numbers told a different story. Book sales actually dipped slightly, from 311 copies the week before to 308 the week that it dropped. Followers didn't rise. Reached didn't expand. In other words, there was no discernible bump from one of the world's most powerful podcast platforms. So Amy's take away was proximity to power doesn't equal power. Exposure doesn't guarantee success. The cavalry isn't coming.

23:27 Real creative success comes from steady small wins, loyal audiences and direct relationships, not from hoping a single big break quote UN quote big break will change everything. This is so fascinating to me, Dr. and I. I wonder first, is this actually a follow up to the last story? It would May. Was she maybe too boring? Yeah. And this might be getting into something that we were going to plan for another day. I don't want. OK, so when you are going on a show to promote something, there is an inherent job that has to be done that both the interviewer and the interviewee they have to do.

24:16 And so my job is are my question is who did not do their job? It is Jay Shetty is certainly, I mean, he's big, but it doesn't mean that he, you know, read all the notes on this particular, this particular guest, even the best of interviewers has a bad day, so. Yeah, that's fair. I mean, that's certainly fair. And at the same time, I've listened to Jay Shetty's show before multiple times to different shows. I did not hear this particular one, but I will give Jay Shetty the benefit of the doubt that he did his job because he asks excellent questions in all these different interviews he's done. Go ahead.

25:05 And if he didn't do it, then he you probably would not be. It probably wouldn't be published. Well, yeah, that's true too. Yeah, that's true too. Let's hear from Sid. Sid, what do you want to add? I'll take a little bit of a different approach to this. I'm wondering if she went on the show for all the wrong reasons, right? She went on the show to, you know, increase her fame or to become famous. She's on Jay Shetty show, right? Which is obviously a really popular show, and he's really popular. Or sometimes, you know, if you have the right intention of doing things, then you get the right results. But it sounds like to me she may have had the wrong intention with this. She was out there seeking fame rather than out there trying to impact people and their lives through her book. And so I wonder if that had something to do with it. And maybe that came through in her in her interview, right? So I think you have to really pay attention to what is the intention of why you're doing this. Why are you going on this particular show? And if it's seeking fame, that 15 minutes of fame, it likely is going to backfire on you.

26:11 This is interesting. Yeah. Could this have been? Yeah, the intention of, yeah, I'm getting on there because it's going to give me maximum exposure and my book sales are going to go through the roof instead of really, what's your message? What are you trying to, you know, you, you want to get your message out to as many people as possible. That's different to me, right? You have something intentional that you're trying to do. You want to educate people, give them new perspectives. But if you're going in because you just want to get more book sales, even if you do share your wisdom, there's a different energy you're creating around the interview. It's very possible.

26:53 And yeah, to Sid's point also, maybe it's not a good fit either. Maybe, even though this is the biggest show, maybe this wasn't what his audience wanted. Was this article something that she like interviewed or she was interviewed and talked about this or is this something that she published? I think that so we found this on Pod News and they were reporting her. I think it was a blog that she wrote after the interview and after the results of the interview. But keep in mind that the interview was a month ago and you know, this is on demand kind of listening.

27:35 I'm wondering what the long term effects will be. And plus this is in summertime when you know, there's not really that a month ago was in the heights of usually low, low ratings. So it's interesting to figure out what the long term that's. True, it could still turn around for her at any point. Absolutely, Nick. Yeah, continue, obviously. Not having read the article in full, I can't say for certain, but like I'm assuming this wasn't her intent, but it kind of seems like she's a little bit budding the Jay Shetty podcast on blast in a way.

28:21 And I think the long term problem for her is going to be that she's not going to be able to get on the podcast. If she goes on a show, it doesn't boost your sales and then spits out a blog post talking about it that I can't imagine any big name podcasters you're going to want to. That that could be. Really put them on blast, but I feel like that's kind of a that was the initial vibe I got. Yeah, And I will say that she also, Dr. she, I think you know what I was sharing here about or you were sharing here about her takeaways. I mean, that was real. That came from her. It wasn't our takeaways, even though we happened to agree with it.

29:03 But when she talks about proximity to power doesn't equal power, Exposure doesn't guarantee success. At the very least, she learned that after doing this interview and and she wanted to share that with her readers. So I just wanted to bring up a little bit of irony that the title of the show that she did with Jay Shetty is called Blocked by Fear of Being Judged. Here's How to Stop Caring and Unblock Your Creativity. Now I want to go hear the episode because that's a that's a thing for me sometimes. Well, I put the link in our DMS with Ashley and you and me I put the link to Awesome. To it so we will make sure to link to that in the show notes. Renee is on stage.

29:48 Welcome back, Renee. Did you want to add to all this? Yeah, that was a great segue into what I was going to say. Perfect. We planned it that way. Yes, you followed the script on script. Again, my thought was what a marketer would do is say, OK, we're not going to let this die. There's still some chance to pull this out. Let's do a blog on it. What can the blog be? You're going to take a hit. You're going to say that you didn't. Whatever didn't resonate, you're going to I I agree with Nicholas. So it's kind of like putting A blog the host on blast. Think about it. She has created curiosity. You even said it, Mark. Hey, I kind of want to go listen to it now.

30:29 So through keeping creating the curiosity, she could get some more bumps or some pity listens. Can we call them pity listens? You know, just like, hey, let's go listen to it. Let's see if we can figure it out. Like, what was so bad about it? Maybe her listeners didn't, you know, even listen to it because that's who's reading the blog, right? The listeners like, oh, shoot, you weren't J Shetty. Oh, I missed that. So I think that would be a marketer in her team would be saying, hey, let's just ride this out. What all can we do with it? However, I do think it's in poor form, not saying it was the best thing to do. And I also think that the way the algorithm works, I would probably never. I listen to a lot of J Shetty's, but it's on health selective things that he talks about with health, but I'm not going to get that in my algorithm probably.

31:18 And so a month really doesn't seem like a lot of time to get through the cycle. And then what if they didn't do good SEOI mean, when we've been on YouTube, we've written our SEO for our episode and we hand it to them. And that we've even gone back a year or so later because we have a runaway blog or a video and we've gone back and adjusted it just to keep the views. This could be a perfect storm where it just everything just wasn't top notch and she's the downside of it and she's feeling it and it could be your topic. I don't know. Thank you, Renee. I really appreciate the perspectives.

31:59 First, yeah, this could absolutely be have been a marketing move 100%. And and look at I mean, we don't know the results yet from this move, but look, even Pod News picked up this story. Maybe her and her team submitted it to Pod News or maybe Pod News found it. Doesn't matter. The point is, is that it's getting more attention. She found a way to to basically make lemon out of lemonade or lemonade out of lemons. So I think that there, there is something to that and it's a little inspiring to me. It's like, OK, so something didn't go well. How can I leverage that to make it go right for me? And I find it fascinating 'cause you're not the only one on stage who has questioned whether or not it was a good move for her as far as or you, as you put it, poor form, right? Calling out that it didn't work for her. But I don't personally see it that way. I don't see it as poor form because it feels like, for one, it would be poor form if she was coming from a wounded place. I'm sure some of you have heard that expression before, right? It it's more effective, more powerful when you're sharing, once you've that wound has healed where you can now share. Yeah.

33:20 You had a bad experience, something that you didn't expect happened. That wasn't the result you wanted, but what did you learn out of it? I'm going through this right now with the Empowered Podcasting Conference. I have this month been really looking back at the mistakes I made along the way. You know, you hear, you've heard me. If you've been following us here, you've heard me. I'll say, complain about the fact that it's been so difficult to get sponsors. You've heard me share my anxiety about ticket sales because ticket sales tend to be very last minute for these types of events.

34:04 And that's forced me to start analyzing what went wrong and learn from it. And I've been debating back and forth. Do I talk about that at the conference when I give my opening remarks? And actually speaking to one of my coaches, that was what the message was from her to me was. You can talk about it, but make sure it's coming from a healed place. Because Mark, you're the leader here and you don't want to set the tone of the event from a wounded place because that's the kind of energy you're going to give out and it's going to be received and it's going to set the wrong tone.

34:45 But wounds can be wrapped up in a bow and presented as if they are from a heel, heel place. So knowing the motive is really hard to know what her, you know what her motive is, but you're 100% that's that's when you do want to share. But as a marketer, sometimes you wrap things up with a bow and you put them out, you know, just just to get the job done. Yep, absolutely. Yeah, I hear you. I was. Going to say, like with your example, like the big difference that I see is that you talking about these fears, anxieties of the Empowered Podcasting Conference and all that is a little bit different because you're not, you're not saying, well, I spoke to my coach and after I got done speaking to my coach, now here we are.

35:33 And I'm having trouble getting sponsors now where it's almost, it seems like as a result of something. This is where we are. And that's kind of how I took this article. And the more I'm thinking about it, the more I kind of agree with Renee that that whole deal was a marketing strategy because why would you drop Jay Shetty's name unless you were wanting to use it to gain attention? She could have very easily come out with an article that she was on a very well known podcast without necessarily name dropping and again, putting him on blast, But that's not going to be as effective from a marketing standpoint. What makes this a bad thing, Nick?

36:15 Really. Because again, I'm looking at this as she's taken lemons and made lemonade out of the situation. And again, to be clear, the blog wasn't her just saying what a piece of crap of a show on purposes. Jay Shetty's a terrible interviewer. She wasn't placing the blame on the show. She was trying to point out that, as you're saying, she was on one of the biggest shows in podcasting and it did nothing for her. And what? Did she learn like a backhanded? It feels like a backhanded slight to Jay. Yeah. And and maybe part of that is because I haven't read the whole article, Like I don't have the whole scope of what was said. Like we just kind of have the Cliff notes of it. Yeah, that might completely change my tune if it depending on how it was written.

37:03 But just hearing how it was presented kind of gives me the ick. OK, we are definitely going to link to this story in the show notes so that people can kind of get a better perspective. And I hope that you all can trust me when I say that she really wasn't coming at J Shetty or his show on purpose. Quote from where she stops talking about the podcast and book sales in probably the top 30% of the article on Substack where she mentions mentions it was I disappointed a little but more than anything I felt fascinated and it has added more evidence to a theory I am developing. A quick note about thanks to Jay for having on the podcast, not, you know, not criticizing him in any way, blah, blah, blah. And then on to a theory about artists being influenced and told that success comes from external forces, that you must put yourself out there in order for things to come back to you. It's not about big breaks.

38:06 It's about little wins. Mark, I think you're right on the money. The context has been mixed, especially for the podcasting space. And I would have probably said the same thing last week when we were talking about the Taylor Swift stuff. All the LinkedIn posts saying podcasting is validated because Taylor Swift talked about her album on a podcast here, kind of the same thing. But the reversal where someone is making a commentary about art and creativity off the back of being on a podcast. All of us closer to podcasting. Look at that from the podcasting lens and how much we wouldn't appreciate that as a podcast host.

38:51 But the main point she's making has nothing to do with Jay Shetty and his podcast specifically. I think there's a lot of hyperbole that gets drawn without context. There's more context than it definitely to be read, so dive into it when you can. But I think you're right, Mark, There are times like this that we look at things like this and try to derive why it was brought about this way, that why would she mention the podcast specifically? Why in the context of podcasting does she feel like she has to say this about how podcasting sucks for selling books? We've discussed all the wheels at play here. There are so many moving parts and that is always the unique thing with podcasting.

39:40 It is a Gray area and there is no hack for it. Otherwise we'd see hundreds of podcasts where people just talk about their book and their book sales skyrocket. I don't think the New York bestseller list has a podcast where they have people pay to be on their show so that they can sell more books to to punch those numbers up artificially or whatever. We are very keen to explore a theory about podcasting and we want to make sure that. What we're doing is justified and valid and important to the world, and something like this I don't think invalidates anything really. I think the goal is the conversation we've had today. There's no result.

40:28 There's no right or wrong person. I don't think blaming anybody for anything is constructive. What she's done with the sub stack where she mentioned it and unpacked it into a theory about artists and how they are imposed on the world, about creating value through external validation, is her result. Our result is maybe, you know, if you're trying to sell someone's book for them in an interview, there's a way to do that well and a way to not do that well. If you're only going on podcasts as a guest, a lot of booking agencies will tell you to guarantee you more listenership, sales and clients and you're not getting that. Maybe that tells you as the podcast guest, this isn't the only channel you should use.

41:15 And don't expect huge results because you're on a Stephen Bartlett podcast or AJ Shetty podcast or Joe Rogan, you know, however that goes, I can't imagine it would go well every single time. But all of that to say, like there are different, different results for different people with different takeaways. And I don't think anyone should be offended. This is one of those situations where there's data and people are trying to figure out what it means to them and the industry. I don't think anyone was wrong here, but it is all very interesting. Thank you, Matt, for both your insights and for quoting the article. And as you were sharing it, it was a light bulb. I was just remembering, looking at that particular line to the line about the fact that, you know, we shouldn't be depending on external forces.

42:06 I think that's a really big one for us or, and, and it definitely is for me. It hits home for me. And when I read it, it hit home for me again, that's something that I'm personally going through right now is recognizing how much I depend on how much I hope that external forces are going to deliver me success. I know maybe I don't share that a lot. And that's really something that I'm going through a lot that I'm starting to really recognize and looking to correct. So yeah, I'm glad that you pointed that out. I think it, like you said, I saw the hearts go up for Nick too. So I, I think he appreciated that as well. I think that's a really important perspective to share. And Sid, I know you wanted to share something as well. I think it's a little similar to what Matthew's just shared, which is life is full of lessons and you can choose to see the lesson, understand the lesson, heed the lesson ever going to say, or you can choose to ignore the lesson. This to me sounds like it's an article where she shared what she learned, the lessons that she learned from being on this podcast, right?

43:17 And then she, it was, I haven't read the article, but according what Matt just said, doesn't sound like the entire article is about it, right? But I think it's great to be able to with your community, whether it gets picked up by others or not, is to share what you've learned from the experiences because that helps people, right? That helps people grow, helps them move forward. There's a lot of positive to sharing what you've learned through something. And as long as I personally, I think it should be shared in a positive light and how it impacted you and how it's helped you move forward because that's what really, really what people want. So sounds like she shared the lessons she learned. But again, I'm going to go back to what I said a minute ago, which is what was her intention? What is her intention?

43:59 Because she mentions book sales, right? Because she mentioned some things about her growth and those kind of thing. It just makes me feel like her intention was to go on that show to sell more books. And I don't know that that's resonating with people. I'm interviewing an author friend of mine who wrote a book, and I said to him, I'd love to have you on the show so that we could talk about what you do and the lessons in your book. But I want to read the book first. So he's going to be on the show probably the first or second episode of the next season. Because I want to be able to read the book and be able to draw my lessons from the book and talk about the book without it being, oh, go buy his book, right? Because I can bring him on now and not have read the book and I can get him to promote his book and maybe he gets a couple sales, maybe he doesn't.

44:50 Maybe my audience gets pissed. But I want to read the book so that we can have a good conversation about the book and the lessons in the book and have my listeners can apply those lessons in their daily life. Thank you, Sid, and I appreciate the perspective. And I'm curious though, do you think that this friend of yours, do you think it is one goal, one intention that he hopes that some books get sold from being on your show? Knowing him the way that I do, his intention is not to, his intention would not to be to sell books, right? His intention would be that people, his area of expertise and hire him to come speak to their groups and do training for the groups because he does a lot of that. And his book is basically his training that he does in the written format, right?

45:40 So I think his intention would be, I haven't asked him this and I will, but I think his intention would be to, if somebody wants to do something, I'd love it if they buy the book. But more importantly, I'd love it if they hired me to come and talk to their group so I can help impact their organization. Sid, who is an actor, an author, somebody? Yeah, that like a favorite actor, favorite author of yours. So right now what I'm going to say is my favorite author at the moment that I've read all of his books is Wally Lamb. He's a non fiction writer. OK, so if Wally Lamb has a new book out and he is on The Tonight Show talking about it and talk and or being interviewed, I should say, do you?

46:25 Do you think he isn't? You think he's on that show to not sell some books? Sorry about my throat. You think he's not on that show? You know what I mean? So. Don't confuse this, right? They want to sell books. That's how they get paid, right? I totally understand that. But if I reached out to Matthew and said, hey, I got a new book, I want to be on your show and my intention to be on that show is to do nothing but sell books, then I think the episodes going to fall flat, right? That's my intention. Your intention should be to impact, right, to help people, to serve people. At least that's my intention, right? And so, and that's what I believe your intention should be. If you want to say, hey, I'm going to sell a freaking thousand books for doing this episode, I think you're going on this show for all the wrong reasons. Bingo, you bullseye.

47:16 That's really where I was going with that. Those questions to you. It's it's it shouldn't be and I don't like shooting all over people, but it shouldn't be the only goal or the first intention of going on a podcast or a show or promoting you're that shouldn't be the first thing. The first thing is what you said, right? It's to make an impact. It's to spread a message. But I, I believe it's totally cool to have selling books as a goal or promoting whatever it is or selling whatever services or products you're selling. That can be a goal, but it's in our opinion, shouldn't be the driving factor.

47:56 Jay's such a thorough interviewer, he doesn't leave stones unturned. So if he did not leave any curiosity to read the book, then people aren't going to want to buy the book. If they feel they got all of it from that one to two hour session, then the curiosity wasn't sparked and they're not going to want to go buy the book. So without hearing the episode, as others have said before, we're speculating without total understanding of what happened there. But that that's I, I listened to something, they were really pushing a book sale and was like, I heard what I needed to hear. I remember thinking that just recently it was like, this was good. I got what I need. I can't imagine there's more depth to it. I've I've got the gist of it.

48:38 So that's got to be part of it. Renee, the same thing happened to me. One of my favorite podcast is called Coaching for Leaders, and he interviewed a student that was part of his program. And I'm like, oh, great, I'm going to hear this person. And then I listen to it. I thought, well, that's kind of let down. And then had another episode interviewing a student. Then all of a sudden, they're like dawned on me that he's interviewing his students because he's about to open his membership and he's doing these short episodes not to serve his audience, but to promote his program and to the results of what people are getting. And it turned me off, so I quit listening and I won't listen again until he goes back to his normal style of episodes. Are your points well taken?

49:21 Thank you, Renee, and thank you, Sid. I have a podcast pitch, OK, And if someone like to action this absolutely sounds like there's a market for it. Let's say that there's a podcast where someone is interviewing people selling books that justify why people should buy their book. And the intended audience is retailers, booksellers, online marketplaces, and the justification is these people telling that particular audience why they should stock their book and how well it will sell. It kind of reminds me a bit of like a Shark Tank, Yeah, kind of a little bit, right. They're not necessarily pitching to buy, you know, or put their book in the stores, but it's still a similar idea to me. Yeah, I think, I think my only point book tank perfect. OK, actually we're making this happen. We're going to sell guest spots.

50:15 But my my point with that is what we should and like throwing shoots around again, completely get it, Mark. But that is an example of a podcast that is perfect for someone who's looking to talk about their book and try to sell it. And that is the intention that lines up on both sides for the podcaster and the guest and the audience. There is a scenario where all of these things line up. But knowing what all those intentions are and having them all, oh look, we're getting a bunch of book titles in here. Yeah, a bunch of this podcast titles, yeah. I've stimulated the little bubbles there. But yeah, I just want to say that like, you know, there, there's no absolutes in it.

50:59 You said that, Mark, but there is a place for something like this. I can't imagine many people would enjoy it. It'd be a very small audience. You're not learning a lot except whether a book will sell. But there is an example of a podcast that you know all these things could happen in if it would work. And it could appeal to a more broad audience in the sense that, I mean, they're obviously going to have to talk a bit about the book, the message, you know, with the intention of the book, etcetera. And that could raise enough curiosity to where, OK, I'm listening, I hear this author and they're sharing about their book. I'm like, maybe I should go read that book, Although is it that they haven't? Is it just a concept at that time? Is it a concept idea?

51:40 Or is it actually a a book that's done printed and they're looking to get it on shelves? We go to a lot of book fairs and see a lot of new authors. We always ask them what's your book about? And, and it's interesting how the writers either can really sell it or they really can't. And it's it because we all have our wheelhouse and some for writers. It might not necessarily always be selling or public speaking, but I think it's a it's not a bad idea. I'm just thinking of the children's bookmark it parents never know what book is appropriate for what age. And we were at this one book fair and it was a lot of not adult, but like young adult stuff and subjects Lucy wasn't ready for yet.

52:29 I don't think I was ready for some of them. It's really kind of an interesting thing. And just to round it out quickly, because Mark, I know you want to finish this up, I can see we're crowdsourcing a book idea here, a podcast idea, sorry, idea for book stuff. But you know, maybe pitch refinement as well. That's what you're talking about there, Alex. Like help book authors figure out how to pitch their book properly and stuff. All of a sudden book tank becomes the thing. But I'm sorry, Mark, a couple of minutes from me and it turned into I love it minutes more. I love seeing topics get legs like that. Billy, I'm giving you the final word. Go for it. What's up, Mark? I'll take that idea one step further and I'll say, and I've been saying this for years, someone should start a podcast or a show on Amazon Live and bring people on who sell their books on Amazon. I've been saying this for years and years. No one's done it, but I'll tell everyone that too, so you can get those individuals to buy it and maybe attention of some bigger buyers as well.

53:31 And, and so, you know, well, first of all, I mean, just to go back, I can't remember when I even jumped up on the stage. But all this whole story reminds me, and I've told the story before of this guy who came on one of my shows from a company called Crossnet. So him and his brother and his buddy all drink beers on a Saturday night until they came up with this game that put Foursquare and volleyball together. And he went on this crazy campaign tour he did over, I don't even know, I mean, hundreds of can't or hundreds of podcast interviews. And you know, he came on my show. He didn't even, he talked about the product. They talked about the process to getting to the product. And he just told his story. And I said, how is this going for you? Like you came on my show, which is very small, like I didn't have anybody listening.

54:19 What do you think the return of your investment of this hour is going to be? And he's like, I don't care. It's bringing awareness and so far we're doing $1,000,000 back-to-back months and the only marketing we're doing is getting on podcast of all sizes. And so his expectation was not, I'm going to go on Billy's podcast and close 10 deals. It's like I'm going to bring awareness to the sport because it's new. I'm going to bring awareness to our our world. And so I do think there's a lot because, you know, I've been on stages with famous people, but that doesn't make me famous. That doesn't mean anybody sees me, you know, I mean, you watch a Taylor Swift concert to bring her back in the conversation. You probably see a lot of amazing, talented, awesome people who are well known in their industry that no one knows their name in that audience.

55:08 But if it wasn't for them, they wouldn't even be there. So I think that's the thing that we all have to keep in mind as creatives, as business owners, as entrepreneurs. You don't know when the next pop off is going to happen. You might assume it's going to be on the next podcast you're on, but it could be from something totally different. Our only job is to always be ready. Like, let's just be ready for it because it could happen. Maybe it doesn't ever happen. Who knows? Billy, thank you. That was a wonderful way to wrap things up because we kind of started with her story of we'll, we'll call it failure, right? And then your story of success as far as promoting something on a show, how to make that work or not work right. So thank you for bringing that.

55:54 I really appreciate it and really enjoyed today's conversation. The I had a feeling we had multiple stories lined up here, probably 6-7 different stories, and I LED with these two because I had a feeling we'd have plenty to talk about it. And you all did not disappoint. A reminder that we're back tomorrow for show #365 Now you as a listener can go and listen to the podcasting morning chat every single day for an entire year, which is pretty cool to say. So join us tomorrow, 7:00 AM Eastern. We do have a topic we're going to discuss. We're I'm thinking about talking about podcast titles and podcast cover art and specifically the rules of thumb and if they really matter.

56:43 Right, we're not going to talk. About the different types of eggs that Dr. make. No, not going to do that tomorrow. But what we will do is as an example, should podcast be in your title, the word podcast and should you use or shouldn't you use a microphone image in your cover art? It's still a thing. I just saw something the other day about somebody saying don't use the word podcast in your title. And I saw something else saying don't use a microphone in your cover art. And I want to talk a little bit about that. And then, of course, wrap up tomorrow with wins from the past week. We want to hear all of our community wins.

57:24 What's been working for you. We want to hear and celebrate with you. I have some that I'd like to share tomorrow. So looking forward to that. And until then, make it a great day. Everybody take care.