Why Feedback and Self-Review Are Essential for Podcast Growth

Welcome to your podcast consultant. Small lessons with big value.With more than a decade of experience and millions of downloads, this hall of fame podcaster is a featured speaker, author, and mentor to thousands. Now he wants to work with you. He's your podcast consultant. Dave Jackson.

I

was not a huge fan of the band Rush when I was growing up.Their music was a little too complex for me. You couldn't dance to it, basically, and it wasn't super heavy. But I always respected the musicianship.And I was listening to an interview from Rick Beato and he was interviewing the bass player from Rush, who is now, after taking many years off because their drummer died. They're on tour with a new drummer, celebrating their music. But in the process of doing this, they had to look at their catalog.And in the past, they would do three albums and then they would do a live album, and then they would do another three albums and then they do a live album. And. And Getty talked about the importance of listening and reviewing your content.

We kind of like the idea of like every four records or so doing a live album for two reasons. One, to update how we sounded live. Yeah. How we were playing.We felt that's important to make note of, of what does that, you know, because you're on stage, you're. You're involved in the notes, you're not listening. And so to do a record and then to listen back, it's really instructive.It's really educational to do a live album every so often so you can actually hear what people are hearing and you can see what you don't like about your playing or what you could improve about your playing. And with a band like us, it was never about being happy with a live album. It was purposeful.We needed to know where we're at and how we can move forward from there. So that was intentional.

That was intentional. Something you should be doing. I always find it odd.I'll go back because I've been podcasting so long, and I'll listen to something from like a year ago. And the reason I picked something old is because I don't want to remember the episode.I want to come at it with absolutely fresh ears and I will catch things that I'm like, oh, why didn't I ask a follow up question there? Or this seemed to kind of go all over the place. Why wasn't this more focused? Or the volume levels or it's too bassy or what?There are always ways you can improve. And yet when I ask people that hire me, I'll say, did you do an audience survey?Because one way to find out how you sound is to ask people, how do I sound? And what I mean by that is not so much the audio quality, although that's part of it. But ask them, is this resonating with you?And when I was a musician, it was easy to tell if the music resonated with people because they would get up and dance. But the minute I got off stage, I was like, how's the volume? Is everything okay? And.And then I would ask them, are there any songs you want to hear us play? Because an easy way to figure out what resonates with the audience is to ask them. And yet.I work for PodPage, and we made a audience survey based on the book. The audience is listening. So you have a bunch of questions that you can use or not. You can make your own or make your own version of this.And yet it is probably one of the features that I won't say gets used the least, but we really expected people to jump all over this.And what's really weird about this is when you aren't doing surveys, when you aren't reviewing your progress or your show, you continue to do the things that may not resonate with the audience. And then ask, why isn't my audience growing? Because you're giving them something that may. It's doesn't mean it's horrible.It's just like, oh, well, there's nothing else on. I guess I'll consume this content. That's not what you want to be. My buddy Ray always says, you want to be someone's favorite.And so if Geddy Lee and Alex and, you know, everybody in Rush, Neil Peart, the drummer, would take time to go, look, we just spent the last eight months making this stuff. Maybe we should. Now that we've got some time down, let's listen to how we sound and see if there's any way to make things better. Mr. Beast.Jimmy, right. The guy on YouTube spent years almost going frame by frame as he got into YouTube. Why?To review his material and see if there was any way he could make it better.And when you make as many videos as that guy does and you make each one a little better than the previous one, you're going to start seeing that snowball effect where your audience is growing. And so I just urge you, as you listen to that, take some time today, find an older episode and listen to it if you have the nerve to.And you should do this because the reason that people grow when others don't is because they have the courage, and their courage is. Or their passion is stronger. Like, I really want to serve my audience. That's stronger than.I'm going to get my feelings hurt if somebody tells me I can improve my show. So when the need to serve is greater than the worry of maybe getting some constructive feedback, you will get some feedback.So find somebody who will tell you the truth. Because I have helped so many people that they asked me for my opinion, I'll say, well, this could have been better.This should have been moved to the end. This. Your volume level is great, because that's funny, because my family said it sounded amazing. And I'm like, oh, I'm not saying it's horrible.I'm saying. I'm saying you need some icing on this cupcake. It's a little dry. So get some feedback from anybody.I have a website podcast, Hot Seat, and everybody always says, that sounds painful, but everybody that gets out of the hot seat is headed in the right direction. So hang in there, grab some courage, and make each show a little better than the previous one. I'm Dave Jackson. I help podcasters. It's what I do.I've been doing it for over 20 years. And. And if you need some help, you can have hours of consulting with me every single month for 99 bucks right now.Normally, I don't say the price because on occasion it goes up or down or whatever, but right now, the school of podcasting is 99 bucks. And if you were to use all of your consulting and you weren't a member of the school of podcasting, that would be a thousand dollars.It's a crazy price. Why is it so low? Because I like to help people. People. That's what I do. Check it out.Schoolofpodcasting.com it's even less when you use the coupon code Listener, and that could be on a monthly, quarterly, or yearly basis. I'm Dave Jackson, and I want to be your podcast consultant.