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Podcast Burnout: How to Keep Going When Growth Is Slow · Your Mic

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  Never compare your first mile to somebody else's 19th.
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  My name is Freddy Cruz.
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  Welcome to Your Mic.
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  One morning I was out for a run,
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  and as I was approaching the one-mile mark,
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  I've got the trail memorized.
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  My three-mile and my four-mile course,
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  I know these courses like the back of my hand.
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  And so as I'm approaching the one-mile marker,
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  I see a figure, and it's a tall figure.
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  And this tall figure ahead of me,
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  probably by about, if I had to guess, maybe 50 yards,
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  is running but struggling to do so.
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  And at that moment, when I see that this figure is struggling to run,
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  I knew exactly who it was.
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  It was an older gentleman, early 60s.
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  How do I know this?
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  Because it was my neighbor.
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  His name is Marcel.
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  and if you knew Marcel you would know in his heart that he is obsessed addicted with running
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  addicted to that natural high that we get the endorphin release right well he was on the
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  struggle bus and I could tell and so as I'm passing him up not to be a douche but I'm passing
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  him up and I'm like, hey, Marcel, what's going on, man?
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  And he was like, hey, Freddie, how's it
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  going?
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  I'm running my first marathon.
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  Really?
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  What mile are you on?
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  I'm on mile number 19.
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  19 miles.
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  So think about this for one second and we're going to bring it back to podcasting.
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  Never compare your first podcast episode to somebody else's 19th or 1900th or 900th.
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  Better yet, don't compare your first podcast to anybody else's podcast.
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  And I'm not talking about simply comparing your podcast to somebody like Joe Rogan or Stephen Bartlett or Mel Robbins.
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  Yes, those are three of my favorite podcast hosts, arguably the best hosts in the history of all of podcasting.
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  Fight me on it.
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  it's a hill I'm willing to die on.
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  But I digress.
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  Don't compare your first mile to somebody else's
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  19th.
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  When you first start your podcast, yeah, you're going to probably ride the struggle bus
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  in that first mile, the first episode, if you will.
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  But what happens is,
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  and this is going back to my friend Marcel, who used to be over 150 pounds overweight.
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  Now he's lean and mean, less than 170, I believe, last I checked.
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  And he wouldn't mind me telling this.
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  I'm bragging about the guy.
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  But he lost a ton of weight, and now he's running marathons.
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  Okay?
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  So your first mile is going to be different than somebody else's 19th.
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  Your first podcast is going to be different from somebody else's 19th.
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  So don't compare the beginning of your journey to somebody else's journey
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  without having any sort of context about what this particular host may have been going through
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  when they first started their podcast, okay?
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  So what you got to do in order to stay in the game is to just keep going, keep reiterating,
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  find out what works for you, dig into those analytics because the analytics are going to be your best friend
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  when it comes to helping.
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  And I'm not just talking about downloads.
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  We're talking about going into Apple's back-end analytics, getting past the number of plays in the Apple dashboard.
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  It's plays, not downloads.
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  But getting past those plays, finding out how many engaged listeners you have, not just listeners.
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  Engaged listeners, meaning people who have listened to at least 40% of or more than 20 minutes of your episode.
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  Figure out where people are dropping off.
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  maybe out of 10 episodes, or let's just say on your mile number 19, you're 19 episodes in,
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  and you're ready to take it to the next level because you've figured out that, hey,
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  I actually enjoy this and I don't mind doing the extra work, but dig into the analytics,
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  get under the hood and see what has worked.
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  Maybe out of these 19, you've got, maybe out of these
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  19, you've got, let's say, 11 of them with a retention rate higher than 70%.
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  And of the eight
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  that are left, those are at less than 50%.
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  We'll start doing more of what got you the success
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  to begin with.
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  And then figure out where you may have gone wrong, okay, with the episodes that are
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  less than 50%.
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  And that, my friends, is how you stay in the game of podcasting.
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  Now, if you'd like to discuss further, you want to chat podcasting, I can talk to you about it
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  till you're blue in the face.
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  Please feel free to hit me up, freddyatspeakpodcasting.com.
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  You can check us out for all of our services, a whole array of them.
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  We can take care of you.
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  speakpodcasting.com
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  thanks for listening to your mic