- Sounding Off
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- The Thing Is Not The Thing
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People Pleasing and Podcast Truths
A few weeks ago, I mentioned that I appeared on Danny Brown’s 5 Random Questions. One thing that came up was the control issues I’ve dealt with over the years.
I’ve come to believe that happiness is rooted in letting go of the things you can’t control.
There’s also a part of me that’s a people pleaser. After 35 years of enticing and appeasing audiences, that’s been a useful trait to have. Another thing I try not to get too worked up about is time. Humans can’t really control it, unless you want to fiddle with Daylight Saving Time.
Back in 2019, before the pandemic, I had Tara Holmes on my now-defunct Hot Air Podcast to talk about her lobbying effort to get British Columbia to stop changing the clocks twice a year. Much to my surprise, a few weeks ago, she got her way. British Columbia will stay on Daylight Saving Time year-round.
Like any good hoarder, I had a copy of the old episode. I updated it and re-released it here. It’s a good listen.
I still think people are going to hate it, just like they did in 1973. Yes, we’ve been here before.
Over the last 10 years, people have become louder about getting rid of the clock change. Credit the pandemic, algorithms, social media, and the ability to customize nearly every part of life, from your Starbucks order to the sounds your iPhone makes. All of it can mislead you into thinking you’re in control of everything.
Bad news: you’re in control of far less than you think.
You’re being dynamically priced every day, and no amount of legislation from the Ontario government is going to save you from ticket gouging.
Now back to the people-pleasing part.
I have spent most of my media career listening to people complain about something they literally got for free. I began to do the same with close friends and family and became so exhausted by the whining that I sought out, bought, and paid for the solution.
No one was happy.
So it wasn’t really about that thing, was it? This is where real therapists can help.
Radio Listeners would complain about too much new music, not enough old music, the morning guy, the afternoon host, and Nickelback.
But when I dug deeper, it was usually about something else.
In other words, the thing is not the thing.
Now let’s talk about podcasters who believe podcasting has a discovery problem.
It doesn’t.
Your show might have a discovery problem, but podcasting does not.
There are countless ways to get a show discovered. The bad advice is often found in Facebook groups. The good advice is usually found in established podcast newsletters. Some strategies cost money. Others don’t.
But sometimes the truth is simpler than the strategy.
Your show is boring. No one needs to hear it. No one is asking for it. The audio is unlistenable. I once told someone that making their show more discoverable was a bad idea because it sounded terrible, and the best thing going for it was that no one was hearing how bad it was.
Other times it just needs to be put in front of the right people. That might mean leaving your studio and going out to meet your future listeners.
One of my own podcasts needed to be blown up and restarted because the show was literally, Hot Air.
With that in mind, if you’d like some truthful advice about your show, I have five slots open in April for a Sound Off Podcheck Session. As for the Hot Air Podcast, I have two webdomains (a dot com and a dot ca) for sale if you are thinking of starting a podcast with that name.
Andrea Collins On The Sound Off Podcast
Over the following 14 years, Andrea made herself into a prominent radio figure in Winnipeg, Montreal and Toronto. She spent time on air at major stations like Curve 94.3 in Winnipeg, Virgin Radio, CTV, and iHeartRadio, all the way up until 2018 when she was laid off (as is the case for many radio employees). But of course, though her time in radio ended, that didn't mean her career was over too. She quickly pivoted to voiceover, and has been putting her radio-honed voice to work as a sought-after VO talent ever since.
Tony Doe: Into the Podverse
Remember that thing up above where I said you can subscribe to Newsletters to help you build your podcast audience? Tony Doe has one. But you can also learn lots but checking out the episode I recorded with him last week. You will learn all about podcasting in Africa and how he built the Nigerian Podcast Index with his bare hands.
Best Thing I Listened To This Week
What’s better than two podcast hall of famers talking about podcast discovery? Arielle Nissenblatt and Rob Greenlee talked for over an hour on the matter. It was a great listen on my travels from Seville to Galicia.
The Podcast Superfriends are on the Move!
I also host the Podcast Superfriends with my pals Jag in Detroit, Johnny Podcasts, Catherine O, and David Yas. We spoke with Justin Jackson from Transistor.FM about the new HLS technology that will be arriving on Apple Podcasts shortly. We asked him questions like how does HLS work? What is in it for Apple? And what is in it for the listener?
Just an update to the episode. Apple Podcasts announced that Justin’s company, Transistor.FM along with Audiomeans, PodBean, Captivate, RSS.com, Podigee and Buzzsprout. During our episode we only mentioned the original 4 which was Art19, ACAST, Omny Studio and Simplecast. Enjoy the watch OR Listen.
I was happy to be able to listen to the Super Q from Mt. Vernon, Ohio while in Spain. Many radio stations geo-block their livestreams but I enjoyed listening to the station here. Yes that’s my voice doing the imaging.
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