THE PODCAST ACCELERATOR

I got an email from my friend Arnie last week asking me how best to prepare for his first ever podcasting conference, and it's not the first time I've been asked so… as a bit of a podcast conference veteran, let's dig in to my tips!

Like any touring band, you'll get sick of saying the same things over and over and repeating the same format time and again. But instead of making changes for the sake of it and confusing your audience, maybe it's time to double down because after all, each episode may be the very first for a new listener, right?

Success in any field stems from repetition & discipline and in podcasting, it is no different. The “Golden Age of Podcasting” term that is often thrown around belies the fact that success in podcasting requires hard work and practice. Sorry to burst the bubble!

Woah! I've been a fan of SquadCast since I first met founders and my friends, Zach and Rockwell, a couple of years ago. I've been using it ever since to record any interviews that I do so I decided to invite the pair on to the Podcast Accelerator to talk about their immense version 2 release – enjoy!

Podcast goal setting sounds easy – you just put a really high download number down on paper and try to hit it, right? Wrong. Podcasting is about gradual growth and focusing on goals that aren't just download-oriented!

Less is often more when it comes to pocast episodes and certainly, quality over quantity wins out every time – look at Dan Carlin, for example. Stop trying to keep up with your content hamster wheel and start thinking about actual podcast growth.

When your podcast downloads aren’t trending upwards, the most common decision that you’ll make as a podcaster is to introduce more and more content – and it’s THAT which is causing your growth to stagnate… try this instead.

Podcast production is undoubtedly getting easier, with tools like Alitu, SquadCast and the RODECaster Pro it’s easier than ever to produce higher quality audio. But, most podcasters still spend too long on the production and not enough on the planning…

Look, just because the person that you follow online gets 10k downloads per episode doesn't mean that you should feel bad if you never get to that number – in fact, you probably don't NEED to. Let's stop beating ourselves up and be realistic, here.

So you have a sponsor and they pay for a pre-roll, so sure, you gotta do a pre-roll. But what about selling your own stuff? Where's the best place to talk about that during an episode?