💥 Blow Up Your Audience With The Audience Explosion Blueprint 🚀
Ever launched a podcast with excitement, only to see it fizzle out after a few episodes? Host Adrienne Hill welcomes podcast expert Erik Johnson as he unveils the secrets to igniting an audience explosion for your business. Erik dives deep into the mistakes many podcasters make, like focusing solely on information delivery instead of building relationships with listeners. Through his Podcast Talent Coach platform, Erik equips podcasters with the strategies and insights needed to create impactful content that captivates audiences and drives business growth. Whether you're a seasoned podcaster or just starting, this episode is packed with valuable tips to help you take your show to the next level and ignite an audience explosion.
#impactfulentrepreneurshow #guestinterview #AudienceExplosion
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Hello, everyone. Welcome back. I am super excited about this training session because there are many podcasts and coaches who teach you the technical side of podcasting, but Erik K. Johnson is the premier coach focused on the art of podcasting with the Podcast Talent Coach. He has topped the radio ratings since 2000 and coached many others to even greater success.
Erik is a nationally recognized podcast and radio talent coach, on-air personality, and radio program director seen on stage at Podcast Movement, New Media Expo, Authority and Influencer Summit, and more. We are so blessed to have Erik here with us. Welcome, Erik. I'm super excited to dig into the Audience Explosion blueprint with you.
Adrienne, thanks for having me. I am extremely excited to be here as well.
Before we dive into all the goodness, I know the audience is hungry for this topic because it's such a popular one. In case there are people in the audience who have not met you yet, do you want to tell us a little bit about your story? How is it that you found yourself in this space of being an expert on the art of podcasting?
Absolutely. Many YouTube videos will teach you how to launch a show, but so many experts get their show launched and they go, "Now what do I do?" That's where I come in to help them out. I got into this completely by accident. I was getting my degree in Architecture at the University of Nebraska. Growing up, I always wanted to be an architect. About three years into it, I started falling out of love with architecture. I ended up getting a job at a radio station by accident.
My brother worked at a radio station and they called looking for him because they needed somebody to fill in and he wasn't home. They said, "We need some part-time help. Are you interested?" I said, "Yeah.” I'm a broke college kid. I could use some extra money. I picked up the job at the radio station to make some extra money. I thought it was pretty cool. I needed an elective for my architecture degree. Who's not looking for an easy A when they're in college? I took broadcasting for the non-major because I was already doing it.
One night in class, the program director of the radio station came in and said, “We're looking for a music director for the campus radio station if you're interested.” I went up to him after class and I said, “I'd be interested. I'm not a Broadcasting major. I'm getting my degree in Architecture, but that sounds pretty cool.” He said, “You don't have to be a Broadcasting major. We're just looking for somebody passionate about it." I said, "I'm your guy."
I took that gig to make a little extra college money. I started falling in love with radio and out of love with architecture, but I was so close to finishing my degree. I finished my degree in Architecture and stayed in radio. I'd been in radio for the next 35 years. Many people say, "Radio, and architecture, how diverse can that be?" If you think about it, they were fairly similar. In both professions, you’re given a structure and a set of parameters, and you have to be creative within those sets of parameters. It taps into both my analytical brain and my creative brain together to create these pieces.
I started doing it with radio and loved it. I built and grew multiple radio stations, even my own show. In 2009, I fell in love with podcasting because it was like the Wild West. It was a whole new frontier. You could do whatever you wanted, and create whatever content you wanted. As I listened to it, it sounded like they were all in their mom's basement next to the water heater, creating bad amateur radio. I was like, “No.”
I thought that if these people knew some of the tactics we used in radio, their shows could be so much better. Their content could have so much more impact and their podcasts could be so much more effective in growing their business if they put a strategy in place. I started coaching podcasters to take their content and transform their information into engaging entertainment so they can build powerful profitable relations with their content and with their podcast. That's how a Podcast Talent Coach was born. I've been doing it for the last decade or so.
That's amazing. What I love about your story is you were open to possibilities. You weren't like closed-minded like I have to fit in this little box and that's how life works. You were open to whatever life had for you. Because of that, look at the cool stuff you're doing now. I love it.
That's the key to both architecture and radio and podcasting. You're given the guidelines and the parameters, now go be creative inside of that. That's how I approach life. Life gives me what I give, so how do I take those parameters, get creative, and have fun with it? That's what my coaches say a lot too, “I never thought about it that way." I always say there's not just one way to success. How do we take what you're doing and figure out how to do it in a way you love that also grows your business?
Podcasting can be such a fun way to do that. It's growing in popularity.
It’s growing by leaps and bounds. It's crazy how fast it's growing.
PODCASTING AS A MARKETING TOOL
Very quickly right now. I'm sure there's a big portion of the audience there tuning in because they're already realizing how hot this is, but maybe there's some in the audience who hadn't considered podcasting yet. Tell us a little bit about why would people want to use podcasting as a marketing tool and what are some of the benefits of tapping into that traffic source.
When I first started in radio, I thought, “Who am I to get on the radio? I'm an architect.” All these guys who are on the radio studied radio, they've gone to school, they have broadcasting degrees, and here I am trying to play dress up. I'm faking it and trying to be them. One day, my program director said, ”When are you going to stop trying to be them and start being yourself?” I said, “What do you mean?”
She goes, “Everything that you do on the radio is an imitation of somebody else.” She said, “When you stop being somebody else and start being yourself, that's when you will be successful." That was the day I started being my authentic self on the radio and got confident in who I was. It's difficult standing in a room talking to people you can't see and hoping you're entertaining them.
There's no feedback loop. You don't get to see the people on the other end.
None at all. I had to be true to myself. When I did, that's when my show took off and became the most listened-to show in town just because I was me. People would come up to me. After listening to me for years and having never met me, they would say, “I feel like we know each other.” One night at the hockey game, my wife and I with our kids were walking down the concourse of the hockey game.
This couple started coming at us and they stopped. “Erik, hey.” We have this five-minute conversation about, "All these are your kids," and yada, yada, yada, “Great seeing you, take care.” They walked away and my wife smacked me. I was like, "What was that for?" She goes, "You didn't introduce me." I go, "Honey, I don't even have any clue who those people were. They listened to me on the radio and they think they know me.” That's the power of audio. It’s that you build that relationship through the theater of the mind.
With video, if you and I are watching a video, we see the exact same thing. There's very little left to the imagination. If we're watching a video of a red Ford Mustang sitting outside of a casino, you and I see the exact same thing. There's no interpretation there. It's a red Mustang sitting outside of a casino, but if I tell you that story through audio, you envision it in a way that is perfect for you in the theater of the mind. Is it daytime or nighttime? Is it a 1968 Mustang or is it a 1986 Mustang? Is it a hard top or a convertible? Is it daytime or nighttime? Is the casino lit up? Is anybody else standing around it? Are you in the red Mustang or are you outside the rest Mustang? Is there anybody else near it? All of these things are perfect for you in your theater of the mind through the power of storytelling.
I love that phrase, the theater of the mind, because we're all going to visualize different things.
That's what separates audio from video. Video is powerful. YouTube is a powerful search engine. I always recommend taking your podcast, recording it on video, and using that for your YouTube channel, but strip the audio and use that for your podcast. Your video will create awareness through search, but your audio will create a relationship that is more powerful than anything you've ever built.
Audience Explosion: Your video will create awareness through search, but your audio will create a relationship that is more powerful than anything you've ever built.
That's exactly what I do. Long after these interviews are over, they end up going on our YouTube channel and it will end up being used as a podcast in the future. Those who are in attendance at this event live will get it hot off the press. The rest of the world will have to wait a little bit.
You do it without doubling the work and then you can take the notes or the transcription and put that up as a blog post. Now people who enjoy video can go find it. People who enjoy audio can find it. People who love to skim the text can find it. Now you've repurposed it in three different formats for three different audiences without tripling your work.
It's all about working smarter, not harder, and truly thinking through all the different ways you can leverage that powerful asset that you have. I love that different people have different learning styles. Some people prefer audio. Some people are like, "Just give me the blog. That's all I want. I like to read." Other people are like video all the way. I find it to be interesting. Tons of people who listen to video turn the audio off and they only read the captions. It’s so weird.
That is strange. As you create your content for your podcast, spend less time teaching the how and more time inspiring with the why. People will take one big thing away from your podcast. What's the one big takeaway today? If you share stories and talk a lot about the why and then offer them the opportunity to get the how by coming to work with you, you'll be much more successful than trying to teach the how on your podcast.
People are doing other things. There's only one reason why people listen to audio, and that's for companionship. They don't want to do whatever it is they're doing by themselves. If they're working out, they have their earbuds in, listening to something because they don't want to workout on their own. If they're driving, they have something on the radio because they don't want to drive by themselves. They're not taking notes.
They're not actively sitting there and scribbling down everything you're saying. They're building a relationship with you. You're there for companionship. Use your podcast to grow relationships by sharing a bit of yourself, telling fantastic stories, stirring emotion, and talking about the why, and then send them to your lead magnet, your webinar, your summit, or some resource that will give them a bit of the what. That leads them to work with you to get the how.
It's so smart. Many people get stuck teaching how-to content and then they create an audience of creepy seekers and they're like, “This happened to me.”
“It's not doing anything to bring me any clients. I got everything I needed by listening to your show. Why would I want to hire you to give me the same thing?” Spend more time doing that. Many podcasters come to me and say, "I'm not getting any clients." I listen to their show and there's a couple of reasons why. One, they don't have anything to sell. They don't have an offer. I listened to their show and, "You gave me great content, but I heard nothing about how to work with you."
If they do have an offer, the second challenge is that they're not asking for the sale. There's no call to action like, "If you want a free strategy call with me, here's where to get it." You have to have an offer and you have to ask for the sale and get people to come. Anybody can take your six steps to success and teach it on their podcast.
If all you're doing on your show is offering information, I can take that same information and duplicate it. There's nothing different about your show that makes you stand out in the sea of sameness. The only thing that will make you stand out from everybody else is you. It's the story that you tell, the things that you share, and your unique personality that makes me fall in love with you every time I listen to you because we become friends. I don't care what you're teaching, but you have to tell your story.
The only thing that will make you stand out from everybody else is you.
You find that you're drawn to certain people. You love the way they explain things, the way they show things, the sound of their voice, or whatever it might be about them. We'll all naturally be drawn to the people that are right for us. It seems so intuitive, yet so many people miss it, that you have to have an offer and you have to offer it. You have to ask for a sale to get sales, but so many people missed that step. It's interesting.
I was on a coaching call the other day and they're like, "How do I figure out what to talk about? I'm running out of content ideas." I said, "You're running out of content ideas because you're focused on the wrong thing. You're trying to decide what your audience wants to hear rather than delivering content that will attract your ideal client. You need to do it in the other way. If everything you do is leading them to work with you, then all of your content should focus on getting them to that point to take that first step in the process in your funnel.”
If you look at a guy like Dave Ramsey on The Dave Ramsey Show, Dave Ramsey runs Financial Peace University. He teaches people how to get out of debt. It's his eight baby steps. Dave Ramsey has been doing a three-hour radio show five days a week for 30 years, answering the exact same question. He has been giving one of eight baby steps as the exact same answer. The only difference is the context in which the question is asked. The amount of debt is different, how much debt they're in, and their job situation is different. It's the context that you wrap your answer around. Spend more time focused on the challenges that your clients are facing. Wrap it in that context and then provide the same answer. It all leads to, “Work with me. Here are my steps that get you through it.”
If you anchor them in why they should be doing something and what to do, but you leave them wondering how, they're naturally going to want help with the how.
I'll give you the what all day long, and if you want to go implement it, then knock yourself out. It's going to take you twice as long, and you're going to have twice as many frustrations. If you want me to take your hand and walk you every step of the way, I'm more than happy to do that.
I learned that lesson too. I went through a phase early on in my business where I was convinced that I could just listen to podcasts, watch YouTube videos, and figure it all out myself." You just make it ten times longer if you try to do that. I don't do anything in my business now without linking in with someone who's already done it, getting them as a mentor, and working with them because I would rather shortcut that learning curve as short as possible.
You can spend time or you can spend money. It's been said so many times. I have a Podcast Fast Blueprint course where I take people through it and launch their podcast in 30 days or less. It's super easy. You can go online, go on YouTube, search for ways to launch a podcast, figure it out, tinker with it, and wonder what equipment to buy. You can get there for free.
You'll spend hours researching, comparing resources, comparing decisions, decision analysis, and analysis paralysis.
Which microphone should I get and then I got the wrong microphone. Now I had to go buy another microphone to get the right microphone because you don't know which information to believe. Let me show you a proven way that's done it. We’ll walk you through these 21 steps. We'll have your show launched in 30 days, and you'll do it the right way, and you'll have a foundation built so you can start attracting your ideal clients. My most frustrating client is the one that has come to me and launched in the wrong way and we now have to go, “I need to get you off of Blog Talk Radio.”
Erase all the bad behavior and let's start over.
It takes us 15 days to undo what you've already done and then the next 30 to recreate it. Let's start from scratch and get you going from there.
CHALLENGES THAT COACHES FACE
Do it right from the beginning. Speaking of some of those challenges of maybe getting started the wrong way, what are some of the biggest challenges that coaches face using their podcasts to grow their business?
One of the biggest challenges coaches face is that they say, "It's hard for me to offer something for sale on my podcast without making it sound like a big ad." Those are the people who spend too much time with the how. “I don't want to give away too much information because then they're not going to buy it from me, so I tease them and then offer it for sale." That's called an ad. Stop doing that.
Spend more time talking about the why, stirring emotion, building relationships, and serving your audience. Give them the how or the what. Give them the six steps. Here are your six steps. If you want, I'll give you the six steps to profitable podcasting. First, build yourself a solid foundation. Know exactly who you're targeting and create your content for that individual.
Second, attract an audience. Go out and find people who love what you do and bring them into your world. Third, create content that serves those people. Fourth, build relationships using your content. Tell your story and build your relationships. Fifth, have a starting strategy. Where do they go to continue the conversation and take that first step in working with you, and then sixth, where do you convert your clients? Where's your client conversion process? That's it. Now, go do it.
I'll give you the what all day long. If you want to implement that, you go, "Yeah, I know how to attract an audience," great. You can do it yourself. Serve first. The sale is basically if you'd like my help with it, here's how you can get more. I have a podcast strategy call. I get people on. Coaches come to me for a strategy call. A lot of coaches get that pit in their stomach, “Another sales call. I don't want to get on a sales call.” My strategy calls are strategy calls. They're not sales calls.
We spend an hour building their strategy. Here's where you are, here's where you want to go, let's build the bridge to get there. Here's my sales pitch. After we're all done with the strategy, I go, “Does that sound like a plan of action for you?” They say, “Yes.” “Here's my sales pitch. Would you like some help with that?" That's it. That's all I say. They go, "Yeah. What does that look like?" We talk about it.
I don't sell to anybody. I show them what's possible and ask them if they want help. More times than not, they say, "Yes, let me have some of that." That's how you offer things without making it sound like an ad. They then struggle and they go, "Yeah, but what do I talk about?" A lot of podcasts go away at seven episodes. They stop publishing. When I first got into podcasting, I thought, "That's crazy. Seven? Why put all the work into it and then stop at seven?"
I started looking into it and there are three reasons that podcasts fade away after seven episodes. One, it's a lot more work than they thought it was going to be because they don't have a system in place to produce consistently without eating up their entire week. They're on YouTube trying to figure it out. That's what they're doing.
The second reason is they don't have a strategy to grow the audience. The audience isn't growing as fast as they thought it would. “I thought if I built it, they would come.” That doesn't happen. We need to have a strategy to build the audience and do it in a quick way. The third reason they go away is they're not making money as fast as they thought it would. They have to have a strategy in place to convert their listeners into clients.
How are we leading them to that first step in the process where they go and get your lead magnet or your resource so they can take the first step in working with you? It's all about building a sound strategy. That's the other challenge that podcasters face. How do I use my podcast in my overall marketing strategy? If you implement the six steps in my podcast profits framework, you build a strategy to attract an audience, build a relationship with that audience, and then get them started working with you. You walk through those six steps and that's where it all comes to life.
ERIK’S GIFT TO THE AUDIENCE
It's super simple. As you said, it's one thing to know what to do, but you know what? The devil is in the details and the exact how is almost where everyone gets stuck. You've perfectly laid out your six steps for us and we all know what to do, but for those in the audience who are like, "This is what I needed. The light bulb went off. I need help with the how and these six steps,” I know that you have a free gift that can help them do exactly that. Do you want to tell us a little bit about it?
I do. A lot of people say, "I don't know what kind of podcast to create. Should I interview people or should I be a solo show? What should I do?” I've created five secret podcasting strategies to attract your high-ticket coaching clients. You don't have to implement all five. You pick the one that works best for you and implement that. It's five ways to attract your high-ticket coaching clients. You can attract these clients without eating up your entire week. Even if you don't have a podcast and you want to use podcasting to get your ideal high-ticket coaching clients, these strategies can work for you as well. You can download that. It's free. It'll give you a little taste of what podcasting can do for you and the transformation it can make in your business.
For those people who are maybe leveraging podcasts already, but they're the ones being interviewed, I know you have a VIP gift for them. Do you want to tell us about that?
I do. The VIP gift will help if you're creating interviews on your podcast or if you're doing interviews on other podcasts. I have interviewed hundreds of artists over the course of time. Everybody from Blake Shelton to Melissa Ethridge to Ozzy Osbourne. They've all been on my radio show. I've done a ton of online interviews.
I have created a program called Crush Your Next Podcast Interview Like a Radio Pro. In that program, I interviewed Jason Derulo on what makes a great interview. What he loves and dislikes about interviews. We talked to Carrie Underwood. We talked to Miranda Lambert. There are a lot of artists in that program talking about how to create great interviews and what you should do on a great interview.
I’ll give you examples of great interviews and show you how to build a relationship with your audience through interviews. It's called Crash Your Next Podcast Interview Like a Radio Pro without decades of training and hours of frustration. You can get it for free as a VIP member. You can download it. It is a course that sells on my website for $97. I'm putting it in your hands as a VIP member at no charge at all. You have to use this special VIP discount code.
We'll have the code next to the button. When you download it, the code will be there so that you can scoop that up for free. What an amazing abundant gift. Thank you so much. You guys, if you're watching this and you're not a VIP ticket holder yet, what are you doing? Grab your VIP ticket. All the speakers are offering courses that they normally charge money for and you get it as a part of being a VIP ticket holder, not to mention the VIP action workbook, and lifetime access to all this training.
Scoop that up. What a great gift. Whether you're starting out with podcasting for the first time and you want to use them to attract high-ticket clients or whether you're on the interview circuit and you're being interviewed, you're giving interviews, both of these tools or both of these free gifts are amazingly helpful. Thank you so much, Erik, for contributing them.
I have so many coaches that come to me and say, "Erik, I can't continue to dump all the time and energy into my podcast. It's not doing anything to grow my business." That's who I want to help. I know you're frustrated and I know that you love doing your podcast, but you have to be able to attract clients to do it. That resource will help you. We also have an amazing event coming up.
It's a three-day event called Influence to Income: It's the Fastest Path to Profitable Podcasting. It's going to happen virtually online, May 5th through the 7th. It's a three-day event where we help you build your framework and the three legs of the stool from your message, how we refine your message, how we refine your marketing so you can grow your audience, and then how we refine your monetization so you can turn your audience into paying clients.
When you get signed up for those five secret podcasting strategies, you get signed up for that. I'll send you full details of our event coming up. Influence to Income, it's going to be a phenomenal event. I would love to see you there, but I'll get you all those details. Grab those five secret podcasting strategies to attract your high-ticket coaching clients. That will get you started, and then the three-day event will pour gas on the fire and we'll do some big things with your show.
I'm super excited about that three-day event. As Erik said, when you grab his free gift, he'll automatically send you the information about the event later. Why I'm so excited about this is it's three full days of massive value. This is an event that most people would charge thousands of dollars for. They are going to open up their strategies and show them all to you. It’s super valuable, you guys. Make sure that you scoop up Erik's free gifts so that you can get the details later about that event. I think it'll be hugely valuable to the audience. Thank you for being so giving with us. Thank you so much.
I love serving people. I love helping coaches. Many coaches are broke and can't figure out how to get more coaching clients. They're phenomenal at what they do. They just need to be able to get in front of more people. That's my goal, help people knock it out of the park.
What an amazing friendship and partnership. I will be connecting with you guys, helping you to get the word out about your event. I think it's awesome. Thank you so much for hanging out with us here and for sharing all of your knowledge with us about podcasts.
Adrienne, thanks for having me. It was an absolute joy.
We'll see you guys inside the Facebook group for QA. Be sure to catch us there. Until then, we'll see you in the next interview. Bye.
Important Links
Erik K. Johnson - Website
https://PodcastTalentCoach.lpages.co/attracting-5-star-coaching-clients
Facebook group - Adrienne Hill
About Erik Johnson
There are many podcasts and coaches who teach you the technical side of podcasting. Erik K. Johnson is the premiere coach focused on the art of podcasting with Podcast Talent Coach.
He has been atop the radio ratings since 2000 and coached many others to even greater success. Erik is a nationally recognized podcast and radio talent coach, on-air personality and radio program director seen on stage at Podcast Movement, New Media Expo, Authority & Influencer Summit and more. Find him at www.PodcastTalentCoach.com.
