Transcript

One Question Friday: How Do You Make Your Podcast Standout?

Okay. Hi, it's uh producer Ben. This is one question Friday. This is where we take one question from a listener and we answer it on air. Today I'm answering it because Sam and Sean took a long weekend. They left a little early on Friday and

A few of you asked questions. to me because I was on the show a little more than usual this week. So I figured I would answer one of those questions. So let's Play it. And before we go into the question, as always.

If you want to leave a question for Sam and Sean to answer, usually it's Sam and Sean, uh go to MFMPod.com and click on the microphone in the lower right hand corner and you can We have a question and if we select your question. Y voice will. Be on air, beyond my first million. Uh okay, let's get to the question.

Hi, this is Jeremy. Uh my question is for producer Ben. What did you do to get your podcast found by famous people like uh Sam and Mr Beast? And do you have any advice for how to develop a good idea for a podcast? Okay, so to answer the first question, what did I do to get my podcast found by Sam and Mr Beast? So the first Answer that I have to give, honestly.

Is Nothing. I'm extremely lucky. That's how I feel. And uh But I yeah, I don't know. Like Well yeah.

The first time I heard Sam mention how to take over the world on My first million, uh You may have heard me use this analogy before, but I felt like I was watching TV. And then all of a sudden the newscaster like looks out of the screen and is like, You, I'm talking to you. It was very bizarre, very weird.

Um I had no expectations, no knowledge that he was gonna mention it. And it just totally caught me by surprise because I was already a fan of my first million. Um so I don't have like a deliberate strategy or anything like that. for getting famous to find and Like my podcast. I feel like all the strategy is essentially just

The content. Um which leads into the second question. Do I have any advice for how to develop good ideas for podcasts? And yes I do, because I get pitched a lot of podcast ideas. Uh a lot of people come to me. And most of them are Good but bad.

Uh what do I mean by that? Good but bad. The the worst thing that your idea can be as a podcast is fine. And that's my reaction to most people's ideas for podcasts. I go Yeah, that sounds fine. And there's a problem with fine. And this is the problem. I uh So before I worked in media, before I did podcasting, I did management consulting. And I was on this one project.

Where we worked for uh security sales. company they Guys go to door to door and sell security systems. And they had a problem, which was they had all these fraudulent sales. And all these fraudulent sales as we looked into it.

At the same time of the year, it happened at the end of the summer. And so as we dug into it, what we found out was that the salesman for the security system were incentivized such a way where they had these really steep Where it was like if you sell nine security systems

You will make Five thousand dollars. But on your tenth security system, it jumps up to twenty thousand dollars. Which is Totally crazy, right? So what you would get is you have all these summer salesmen who are just selling for the summer and they have to hit

these certain steps. They have to s hit a certain number of sales. And if they do, they're gonna get this huge lump sum. So towards the end of the summer, they're really trying to hit Uh these numbers. And they get panicked. And they start just selling accounts like crazy, even if that means

Fudging the numbers a little bit, selling systems fraudulently, stuff like that. So it's a big problem. So we go tell them, hey, This is a big problem. Uh you should do a more Gradual Incentive structure.

And the executives at the security system company told us. You know, we've actually tried that. And it didn't work. Sales went way, way down. When we did that. Not just the fraudulent bad sales at the end of the summer. Yes, we got rid of those, but overall sales went.

Way way down. This data is wrong every freaking time. Have you heard of HubSpot? HubSpot is a CRM platform where everything is fully integrated. Whoa, I can see the client's whole history. Calls, support tickets, emails, and here's a test from three days ago I totally missed. Hotspot, grow better.

And uh so we thought that was interesting, so w Why do you think that is? And what they said was Panic. Isn't exponentially greater motivator.

Than mere desire. So You might want something and you'll work a little harder to get something. That you want.

But if you're panicked. Then you'll work ten times harder. Okay, exponentially greater. And um And I think that's true.

And I think that's true of Podcasting and of content as well. Too many people think oh well I'll just produce something that's Okay, that's good, that's fine. That's inoffensive. I'm gonna

try and capture as big of an audience as I possibly can. What you really need to be optimizing for instead is Uh not panic, obviously, but obsession. It's better to have a smaller audience. With a very few people who are totally obsessed.

With your podcast. And so every decision I made with my podcast, which is a history podcast called How to Take Over the World. was with that in mind. So for example When I first started telling my friends and family, I'm making this history podcast called How to Take Over the World. Uh Everyone told me the same thing, which is

That name is like too aggressive. You need to chill a little bit. Uh c can you call it something like a little milder. How about you know, life lessons from history. And um I just thought No, I think I really, really want to make a podcast called How to Take Over the World. And I think I would be obsessed with a podcast called How to Take Over the World. I was just like, how cool is that? Everyone wants to know how to

take over the world, or not everyone, but I do. I wanna know how to take over the world. That sounds incredibly interesting. Similarly, if you go listen to the podcast, It's intro music. Is uh is now iconic. A lot of people love it. But A lot of people when they first heard it said

Oh, that beat is like really aggressive. If you listen to it, it's a very aggressive intro song. And so a lot of people tried to talk me out of it. They said, It's good, but can you back off a little bit? Can you make it like Just a little less broy and a little less out there. And If I had done that Could be more agreeable to more people, but there would not be

As many people who are obsessed, people are obsessed with the intro song. People love it. And so To me, that is BT to good content.

these really, really strong emotions. So Um You need to get people obsessed, uh, you need people to feel Um panicked, right? If it's if it's uh a podcast about like a

a social issue, you need people to p feel terrified, feel horrified. uh mortified that this thing is happening that you're trying to to illuminate. And too many people go Well, this is a good idea, right? Like this is interesting. And

That doesn't cut it. And so I think The fact that I made a podcast that Honestly, does not appeal to some people, and I I think a lot of people don't realise that, but like Some people are very turned off by a podcast called How to Take Over the World. This is aggressive intro music. And but that's okay because it's more than made up for by the fact that a few people are obsessed with it.

And they Well then tell other people about it. They evangelize the podcast. And that is ultimately how people like Sam and Mr Beast heard about it was Through the grapevine. And so

Yeah. Uh thanks for the question, Jeremy. That's my advice. Make stuff that people are Obsessed with. Okay. Uh next week, one question Friday, we'll be back to Sam and Sean. Thank you for doing it.