John Corcoran 7:44
You know, another point I make people is that when you confine yourself to this limit of like, 10 episodes in a season, and you announce it at the beginning, there’s gonna be 10 episodes, right? And then on your 10th episode, you ask, as we encourage people, do you ask the guests you had on? Hey, you know, is there anyone else that you know, in your network that you think would be a good person to that I should interview and they tell you the names of five people, if you’ve been doing 10 all along, and that’s the end of the season, then you have to say, like, oh, sorry, I’m done with this. And you completely missed out on that whole purpose, or one of the big purposes, and one of the big reasons, one of the big advantages of doing a podcast, which is networking, and getting introductions to other great people. So having this artificial limitation of 10 episodes, or 20 episodes, or whatever it ends up really harming you. And then you also mentioned the beginning you said, part of the reason that people do a season is they want to take a break, they want to take a break. And I think I want to dig a little deeper into that, because they think the problem is the season isn’t the answer. The problem is that the way that they’re doing the podcast is too much work on them. They probably have too much on their shoulders, too much on their plate, they haven’t offloaded pieces. And I know this pain, very cutely. Because you helped me with it five or six years ago, when I was ready to give up my podcast, and I had too much on my plate, I was not delegating enough of it. Now, I wasn’t focusing my energies on the right thing. So I think if the reason that they’re doing a season is because they want to be able to take a break, but they need to do is improve their process so that the elements that they focus on with the podcast, they love they enjoy, they can delegate all the rest or hire a team like ourselves where we can handle all those pieces for them. So they can focus on the highest and best use of their time, connect with great people, deepen relationships with existing champions and clients, get more clients and then they’ll be motivated, keep going. The other thing I’ll say is that you know, just dovetailing on what you said was when you do two shows, it’s additional complexity. You know, if you add another show it’s additional complexity. Rather than keeping it as one show. doing different series that are combined in one show you achieve the same objectives that you wanted to achieve. Without the additional complexity of doing two shows, and just I’m sure you’ve seen this, Jeremy, I’ve seen this over 10, 11, 12 years of doing a podcast, we’ve seen a lot of people that come into the space, they add one, two shows, they do it for six months, or 12 months, and then maybe they do each half way, and they get frustrated. And then they end up quitting both. whereas others who come into the space, do one show, have enough content and energy and, and, and time to devote to doing that one show well, and then they end up doing it more successfully. So just ends up being more successful. And you get the long term benefit of doing it without giving up, which is really what we’re about, we’re really about getting people to the long term benefit, which is why you and I’ve continued to do it over all these years because of the long term benefit to it.
Jeremy Weisz 10:52
Yeah, I think like what you said, with, you know, the two most important pieces that we find that people are most successful is they delegate all the pieces. So they’re worried about just building the relationship and running their business. And the second is having the right strategy in place to make sure it makes sense and serving the goals of the business. And so they could be doing all this activity. But is it leading to the goals that they have set. So the right strategy is paramount. And we want, we want to make sure that people have the right strategy for their business. The second thing I’ll mention is, you know, when someone does a season, you know, they may have different goals, and their goals may change, or their goals or strategy may shift. I remember when I first started my podcast, a long time ago, I thought I was going to be the foremost of the number one podcast for productivity. I wanted to love productivity, I was gonna have every single, you know, productivity founder, my questions would be about productivity out of the top CEOs, founders. And after about four episodes, I was like, this is like, What am I thinking? You know, they keep saying the same thing. I don’t want to ask these questions anymore. And so if I would have said, like, I’m gonna do a season of 12, I’m gonna do this car product T, I didn’t name my show the productivity show or anything. I didn’t pitch them. I’ll say Luckily, but I could have. So what do you think you start with? Or even right now, it may shift? So you just have to be careful about that.
John Corcoran 12:34
Yeah, that’s, that’s a great point. Yeah, his thing I will point out is that, I also want to say to people that the way we do things, the name of the show doesn’t matter so much. Because a series in some ways, can substitute for the, the same purpose of a name does, which is, ultimately when you’re doing a podcast, it’s about getting great people to have great conversations with you. And so that a piece of that is communicating in text, LinkedIn email message, or you know in person and communicating to people about the wisdom and the virtue of them spending 30 minutes talking so that you can create a podcast episode together. And especially when you’re getting started, this is important, because you don’t have a large track record. But this series, if you do it right, you reach out, you use the right language, you communicate, say, I’m doing a series on my podcast, featuring top CEOs in the tri-state area or something like that, you communicate it the right way. One, it doesn’t matter what the name of the podcast is. and it serves a similar purpose to what a season does without the confinement without the handcuffs that you get of a limited season. And it allows you to come back to it, as you mentioned earlier comes back to it from time again. So you’ve done a lot on your podcast where you do a series, well, you might do a couple of episodes, then you go and do other episodes on another topic, and then you come back again. But it gives you the benefit. And then eventually you get a couple of great people in that series. And then all you have to do is name drop a couple of other people as part of that series, and people’s competitive juices start flowing. And they’re thinking like, I’m the top CFO in the tri-state area, I want to be part of this, you include that I know that person, I want to be part of that. You know, and so it shows that result as well. Any final thoughts? Jeremy on this on this?
Jeremy Weisz 14:29
I think you hit on something important, which is it’s basically a way to niche without niching if that makes any sense, right? Because you don’t have to call your show the, you know, CMO e-commerce show or something.
John Corcoran 14:46
And you can once you decide that you’re not going to focus on CMOS or you’re not gonna focus on e-commerce or whatever.
Jeremy Weisz 14:52
It is interesting how it spirals and leads in like even so I have interviewed over 100 of the top directors. Farmers Market is a cooperation of the planet. I’ve gone down the route on having some of the top e-commerce people, whether they’re running their own company or maybe their software in the space. I went in, you know, had done top VCs venture capitalists. So I’ve gone across these different niches, and it just accumulates over time someone reached out the other day, and like, Oh, I think I have some VCs to introduce you to. And who else have you? Have you interviewed? And I basically, as I looked through my episodes, I started listing them and I’m like, Oh, my God, I’ve actually interviewed a ton of VCs. And when I listed it out, and now if I would have just done a season that I did started six months ago, I would be like, I’m sorry, I’m not doing that right now.
John Corcoran 15:48
Yeah. So yeah, yeah. So that’s a great advantage. All right, Jeremy, where can people go learn more about you and learn more about the work that we do?
Jeremy Weisz 15:57
You can go to I think a better title for this is a Caesar series versus season should be how do you niche without niching? You can go to rise25.com. You can go to our about page if you go to the homepage. John and I are bantering a bit. And I think he included some outtakes on our thoughts and how do you get ROI with a podcast you could check out rise25.com or about page or more episodes of Smart Business Revolution, more episodes of Inspired Insider because we have tons and tons and tons of free content of some of the I consider some of the most amazing founders, entrepreneurs executives on the planet
John Corcoran 16:37
and go connect with us on LinkedIn. We do these LinkedIn lives live every Wednesday at 11am Pacific 1pm Central Time. 2pm Eastern time. It’s a pleasure. Thanks, everyone.
Outro 16:50
Thank you for listening to the Smart Business Revolution Podcast with John Corcoran. Find out more at smartbusinessrevolution.com. And while you’re there, sign up for our email list and join the revolution. And be listening for the next episode of the Smart Business Revolution Podcast.