Latest / Podcast Growth, Podcast SEO, and Podcast Launch Strategies for Mom Entrepreneurs | Podcasting for Moms / 88. Lay the Foundation: How to Find Your Podcast Niche and Ideal Listener (The LISTEN Method)

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88. Lay the Foundation: How to Find Your Podcast Niche and Ideal Listener (The LISTEN Method) · Podcast Growth, Podcast SEO, and Podcast Launch Strategies for Mom Entrepreneurs | Podcasting for Moms

• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: A client came to me last year with 35 episodes already recorded and published.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: So that means she had a whole back catalog, a decent following, and she still could not tell me who her show was actually for.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: Not in a fuzzy vibe space way, but I mean if I stopped her at mid-sentence and said, who's listening to your show right now?
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: She genuinely did not know.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: She had built an entire show on top of nothing.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: And here's the thing: that is not a content problem.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: That is not a record more episodes type problem.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: That is a foundation problem, and no amount of better hooks or fancier editing was gonna fix it because you cannot improve your way out of a strategy that you never actually built.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about it.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Podcasting for Moms, the show for moms in business ready to start, grow, and scale a podcast that turns your listeners into buyers.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Jenny Summerson, a podcast strategist and fellow mom entrepreneur.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: You're in the right place if you want to learn how to start and grow a podcast that attracts your ideal clients and really does the heavy lifting for you when it comes to selling your offers, all while balancing life as a busy mom.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Are you ready to create a podcast that grows your income, impact, and influence?
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Let's make podcasting work for you.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because as moms, we know how to get things done.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: All right, let's jump into the episode.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, hey, and welcome back to Podcasting for Moms, the show that helps you build a podcast that actually works for your business instead of just existing next to it.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Jenny Sennison, and today we are kicking off a brand new series where we go deep on every single lesson of the listen method, which is my sustainable podcast growth framework.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: If you caught the intro episode, you already know the six different stages.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: But if not, I want you to go back and tune into the most recent episode before this and before diving into the rest.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: So today we are spinning the whole episode on the very first letter of the framework, which is L.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: And L stands for lay the foundation.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm telling you this right now.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: This is a stage almost everyone skips, and it is the stage that determines whether every single episode that you record after this one actually does something for your business.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: So let's dive in.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: So the first pillar of lay the framework is that your niche is not a vibe, it is a decision.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Most people build a podcast the same way that they build a hobby.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: They pick a broad topic that they are excited about, stuff like business, motherhood, mindset, and then they just start recording episodes.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the problem with that.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: A broad topic does not attract a buyer.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: It attracts an audience of people who are curious about a general subject, and curious is definitely not the same thing as ready to work with you.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: Your niche is not the topic that you talk about.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: Your niche is the specific transformation that you help one specific person move through.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's it.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: Not something like moms who want to start a business.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's not a niche.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: That is a demographic.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: A niche sounds more like moms with a service-based business who are stuck trading time for money and need a way to sell without being glued to Instagram.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: See the difference there?
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: One of those attracts any mom that wants to start a business.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas the other one attracts someone who is going to lean in and say, wait, that's actually me.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: So when I sit down with a client to lay this foundation, I ask them one question over and over until it stops being vague.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: And that question is, what does this person believe right now?
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: And what do I need them to believe by the time that they finish this episode?
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: If you cannot answer that question, then your niche is still a vibe, not a full-fledged decision.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so now let's move on to the second pillar.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: Your ideal listener has to be one person, not a crowd.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: So let's talk about the client that I mentioned at the top of the episode.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: When I asked her who her ideal listener was, she said, moms who want more freedom in their business.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's a great sentiment, but it's completely useless when it comes to making content decisions.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: But it's completely useless when it comes to making content decisions.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: So here's what I had her do instead, and I want you to do it too.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I want you to picture one real person.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: Give that person a name if you want to.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: What do they do for work right now?
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: What has she already tried that doesn't work?
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: What has she already tried that didn't work?
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: What is she embarrassed to admit out loud?
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: And what does she search for at 11 at night when her kids are finally asleep?
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: That is your ideal listener.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: One person, not a crowd.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: And here's why this matters so much for the lay the foundation stage specifically.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: Every decision that you make downstreams of this, your episode topics, your language, your offers, all of it gets built on top of this one person.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: If that one person is fuzzy, everything you build on top of her is going to be fuzzy too.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: Then you end up with a show that sounds fine, but it converts no one because fine was never a target audience.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: And this is also where your offer alignment lives.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: Your ideal listener's problem has to connect directly to something you actually sell.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: Not adjacent to it, but directly to it.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: If your show teaches people to feel more confident and your offer sells done-for-you services in a completely unrelated niche, there is a gap, and gaps are where sales tend to disappear.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: Then we have the third pillar, which is your show description is discoverability of real estate, not a bio.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: So you want to have your niche and your ideal listener locked in, then the third piece of laying the foundation is making sure that people can actually find your show in the first place.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: Most podcasters treat their show description like an about me page.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: They say something like, Hi, I'm Jenny, and I help moms build businesses.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: Join me every week for tips and encouragement.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Well, unfortunately, that little description is not doing a single bit of work for you when it comes to search.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Your show description and your keyboard extension in the podcast name field are some of the highest impact, lowest effort moves available to you, and most people don't use them well.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: So here's what I actually want you to takeaway.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: Your episode description should be written the way that your ideal listener would type in a search query, not the way that you'd introduce yourself at a networking event.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: If she's searching things like how to start a podcast for my coaching business, your description needs those words in it.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: Plainly, not buried under your personality, which we love personality, but it's not searchable.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: So refining your show promise falls in the same bucket.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: One clear sentence that tells a stranger exactly what they'll get and why it's different from the 50 other shows in your category.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: And here it's really important to be clear, not clever.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I want you to stop recording episode 25 plus before you've answered who episode one was actually for.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that feels backwards because creating content feels like progress.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: Recording feels productive, but strategy work that doesn't feel like real work is still the work, and skipping it is not saving you time.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's borrowing time from your future self at a much higher interest rate.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: Doing that foundation work now saves you months of wasted content later.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: That is not a maybe.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: That is just what happens to every single client who skips this stage and has to go back and rebuild it after 40 episodes instead of doing it before episode one.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: So let's bring all of this back together.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: Laying the foundation means three things.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, it means getting brutally specific about your niche as a decision, not a vibe.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, it means building your content around one real ideal listener instead of a vague crowd of people and making sure her problem connects directly to your actual offer.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: And number three, it means treating your show description and keywords as discoverability tools, not as a bio.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: When you get those three things right, every episode that you record thereafter has somewhere to land.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: And if you want to know exactly where your own show stands right now, I built something for you.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's called the Podcast Grow Scorecard and it walks you through the listen methods stage by stage so you can see precisely where your foundation is solid and where it's still shaky.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's free, it takes a few minutes to complete, and it will tell you more about your show than guessing ever will.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: You can grab it via the link.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: You can grab it via the link in the show notes.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: Next week, we're going to be moving into the I and Listen, which stands for improve your episodes.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: So if this one hit close to home, that one's gonna hit even harder for you.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for tuning in, and I'll see you next week for the Improve Your Episode step in the framework.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for tuning into Podcasting for Moms.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: I hope today's episode gave you the tools and inspiration you need to make your podcast work smarter, not harder.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: If you love what you heard, be sure to subscribe and leave a review.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: It means the world and helps other moms in business find the show.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: For more tips, resources, and support, head to podcastingformoms.co.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, you're not just building a podcast, you're building your legacy.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, friends.