We asked for feedback and heard crickets — here's why that's good

Today I'm going to give you a little sneak peek of the episode that's coming out Monday on the School of Podcasting.

If you're not familiar with that, I do a longer form show called Creatively School of Podcasting.

And today I'm going to say something that sounds weird and that is you've put out a survey to get some feedback on your show and you didn't get any, and why that's a good thing.

Welcome to your podcast consultant.

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Dave Jackson.

My ex wife loved yellow roses.

I actually just had dinner with her last week.

We are still good friends.

We just realized we really shouldn't have married each other.

And I remember every Tuesday I thought I was the most romantic husband.

I would bring home a dozen yellow roses.

And I don't know if she was having a bad day or something or just the fact that I'm not the easiest guy to live with, but the one day she walked home on a Tuesday and there on the kitchen table was yet another dozen yellow roses.

And she looked at me and made a joke.

And so I'm going to say this is an adult joke, even though I'm cleaning it up.

So if you got kiddies, now would be the time to hit pause.

But she basically said, look, if you would like more sexual favors, you could try running the sweeper or making dinner sometime.

And so here I thought I was giving exactly what she wanted, and she did.

She really appreciated it.

She just was like, yeah, that's good.

It's not great.

It's not really what's going to get me to really like you a whole lot more.

And so there are times when we put out a show and we think it's good, and it probably is.

I always tell people when I talk about reviewing your show, I'm not here to rip to shreds.

You know, you've worked hard on it.

It just probably there's some room for improvement and you need some outside input.

And this was great feedback.

But the other thing was, for weeks, probably months, she was getting yellow roses.

And it was until much later that she let me know, hey, there are other ways that you could, for lack of a better phrase, score points with me.

And so I got not great feedback.

She was appreciative, but she was like, hey, you, you know what?

On a scale from one to ten, that's a six and a half.

If you're looking for an eight or a nine, try this.

And so my point, Dave, I. I didn't even get any feedback from the survey I put out.

Okay.

Because the goal that I talk about on Monday show is really connecting with an audience.

Well, how do you really connect with someone?

It's when you know them and they know you and you're giving them exactly what they're looking for.

Dave, how can I do that if they won't tell me what they want?

I'm trying to measure the connection with my audience.

And even though you didn't get a single reply, you found your answer.

And look, I'm not going to sugarcoat it.

It hurts.

But the bottom line is either A, you're not positioning this in a way that they understand that they are in control of making the show better.

They just have to let.

But the bottom line is, at this point, if you're not getting any responses, you're not connecting with your audience.

You know, as they say on college campuses, prove me wrong on that.

Now, part of it sometimes is, like I said, you're not explaining it well on how you're willing to make the show better for them.

The other thing I hear people do is, is they will do that once.

You have to treat this like an advertisement and really explain to them how they are going to benefit from this.

Some people will even offer something of value.

Now, if you're giving away your free book and you still don't get any, we've come to the conclusion that they don't want your free book.

I did that once with my first podcast.

I was giving it away for a dollar.

You know what I learned?

They didn't want my book.

And so something like a $25Amazon card would be good.

I've heard it said you don't want to give away too much money because then people will fill out their survey.

Not because they want the show to be better, they'll just go through and answer C, on every multiple choice.

They just want that money to go shopping.

But if somebody puts out a survey and you don't get any answers, Dave, you're weird.

How is that good?

Because you got answers.

The answer, and again, I know this hurts, is your audience isn't very connected or you're not positioning this right to where your audience understands this will help make the show better, or you're not doing it long enough.

You really have to be persistent.

And if anybody fills out the survey, be sure to give them a shout out.

Hey, I want to say a shout out to Keith.

Thank you so much.

I see where you filled out the survey.

Thank you so much for that.

You're in the running for the $25 gift card.

Be sure to praise what you want people to do.

And if you're using something like podpage, if you don't want to do a formal fill in survey, you could use, you know, voicemail like on this show.

If you go to podcastconsultant.com voicemail you can leave me feedback on the show but what I just did there is not very good.

What did I ask for?

Feedback.

Well, what kind of feedback?

I don't know.

Just tell me what you like.

You might want to.

When you do a form, you can ask specific questions.

Is the show long enough or is it needs to be long or is it too short?

Do you enjoy this?

Do you enjoy Guess what was the last thing you purchased?

That's always good to find out because that might be a potential sponsor.

But I'm here to kind of pick you up because I realize again, I've been there.

When you put out a survey and you get no results, keep asking, sell it better and explain to them how it's going to benefit the show if they help.

It's not your show and you do it for them.

Explain to them it's our show and we do it together.

That's how you start to build that connection.

Now if you need help with this, I'm always willing to help.

You can join the school of podcasting and use the coupon code listnr.

Or if you just want a one time consulting call, I can do that as well.

But you can find me over@schoolofpodcasting.com where I've been helping podcasters for over 20 years and I can't wait to see what we're going to do together because I want to be your podcast consultant, Sam.