Transcript

Listener Number 37 · Your Mic

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Repeat after me. Your target audience is not a real person.
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It's a Pinterest board of buzzwords. Founders age 25 to 45 who value authenticity,
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growth and impact, and want to 10x their stop. There's no way you can talk to that.
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You can only market at it.
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Welcome back to your mic. My name is Freddie Cruise Founder of Speak
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Podcasting. If you want to get your podcast back on track or if you're an aspiring host and you
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want to start on the right track, hit me up for the official Speak Podcasting Roadmap.
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You can grab it right now. Speakpodcasting.com. Slash free resources.
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And today we're going to fire that fake avatar and hire listener number 37. Why 37?
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Because why the hell not? So let's start with why this matters in the first place.
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That's because every decent podcast strategy guide will tell you. Know your listener, build a
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podcast avatar, create a detailed profile. They're right in theory. The problem is in practice,
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you end up with someone who sounds like a LinkedIn carousel trying to become a human.
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And we all know that's just not possible. The best episodes, they don't sound like they're
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directed at, quote, an audience. They sound like one-on-one conversations where you kind of host
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talking directly to somebody's specific fear or desire. That level of intimacy is what turns
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casual listeners into binge monsters. So instead of ideal persona, let's talk about listener 37.
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Listener 37 is one actual human in your audience. The person who sent you a DM that made you cry.
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The one who quietly likes everything but never comments. The one you'd actually want to go get coffee
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with. You're going to build them out using the avatar tools, but you're going to make them
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messy, specific, and inconveniently real. Let's sketch out one for my podcast. Your mic
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has an example. We're just going to use the name, Steph, age 36. She lives in a mid-sized city,
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probably in a suburb that has more chain restaurants than trees. We've been to those, right? Her job,
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content lead at a SaaS company, moonlighting, as a podcast host on nights and weekends commute,
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25 minutes, two stoplights, secret fear. At the show is mediocre and nobody will ever tell them,
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why they listen to this show, your mic. Because everyone else talks about best practices,
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and I talk about the pain and craft and ego like somebody who's actually been in the arena,
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and I have been in the arena. This is not female 25, 45, psychographically ambitious. No, no, no.
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This is someone whose boss misuses the word strategic and whose dog barks every time they record.
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Now, watch what happens when you talk to Steph instead of creators, or founders, female 25,
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to 45, or whatever. Here's an intro written for creators. On today's episode, we're going to
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discuss how to better define your target audience so you can create more resonant content. I hope
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that didn't put you to sleep. Now, here's an intro written for Steph, aka listener 37.
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Steph, this one's for you. The one recording in the code closet next to the laundry room,
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hoping the mic doesn't pick up the dryer, wondering if anyone actually hears you, or if you just
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yelling into a void. Now, one of those makes a real human sit up. That sort of specificity is how you
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build that intimate there inside my head feeling guides are talking about when they push podcast
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avatars. And that feeling is what sparks word of mouth. When someone feels seen, they send your
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episode to the friend who's just as weird as they are. So, how do you actually create listener 37?
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All right, I'm going to pause for just a quick second. Grab a notebook because I'm going to give
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you a framework. You ready? Okay, one seconds passed. Step one, base them on a real listener.
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Don't try and invent from scratch. Use a DM, a review, an email. Someone you know offline
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who actually listens to your show. Most avatar guides are going to tell you to pull from research
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and surveys. Yeah, do that. Just don't stop it. Marketing manager in tech. Step two, answer
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four dirty questions. Yeah, you're going to get dirty. Here we go. What problem are they pretending
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they don't have? What do they listen to your show instead of doing? Sleep, other work,
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doom scrolling? Who would they be embarrassed to admit they listen to? What are they secretly
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jealous of and other creators? You're going beyond demographics and into the stuff that actually
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drives behavior. Exactly what avatar experts say to do when they push deeper psychographics.
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Step three, write a literal paragraph about their day. I know this sounds goofy, but just go with
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me. Okay. Step wakes up, checks Slack, hates it, makes coffee, opens notion, stares at the empty
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page, opens Spotify to avoid the empty page. That sort of thing. Now you're ready to weaponize
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listener 37, aka Steph. Now or they change your decisions, hooks. You're not asking what's a
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good generic hook? You're asking what sentence would make Steph pause in the driveway instead of
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turning the car off? Examples. You pick analogies that live in their world. If they're in SaaS,
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you don't spend 20 minutes on agricultural metaphors. CTAs, calls to action. You stop saying,
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share this with your audience and start saying, text this to one friend at your company who hates
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the same things you hate. This is in line with every audience first in avatar centric growth guide
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that says, the more your listener feels like you're talking only to them, the more likely they are
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to banger convert. Also, listener 37 helps you say no. When some trend pops up, whether it's a
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format topic or a guest, you ask yourself, would Steph genuinely care about this? Would her life
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actually be better after listening to this? And if not, don't do it. You're no longer serving
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an abstract blob called growth. You're serving one person who will either stay with you for years
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or drift away because you started chasing people who aren't them. And here is the sneaky part.
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When you build a show for one real person, more of the right people start to show up because they
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recognize themselves and Steph, even if their name is not Steph and even if they're a guy and not
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a girl, right? Because they'll recognize themselves and Steph or they recognize someone they know and
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share that show with that person. So here's your challenge this week. Pick your listener 37.
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Again, pull from a real DM, a reviewer or a friend. Give them a name. Write one messy paragraph
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about their life. Tape their name near your mic and start your next three episodes by saying
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their name in your head or out loud in the raw take. All right, Steph, let's do this and believe
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me if it doesn't feel at least a little bit creepy, you're not doing it right. So it's okay to
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feel a little bit creepy. You don't need a target market. You need one person who when they hear you
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feels like the universe finally sent them someone who gets it. Everybody else, they can listen in
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but only if you share the episode. It only takes a few seconds to change the life of a podcast host
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in your circle. So don't be stingy. Share it. Please, and thank you.