#185: Why Business Owners Kill Their Podcast (And It's A Mistake)

Most business podcasts die before episode ten. Not because they failed. Because the owner quit right before it started to work.

Chris Hanna has had a front-row seat to it. He produces video and podcasts for business owners, and he has watched different shows shut down. 

This episode is about that mistake. Why it happens, why it is almost always wrong, and exactly what to do instead.

Inside:

• The five real reasons owners quit, and why none of them mean the show failed
• Why the full episode was never the asset, and what actually is
• What a podcast really is: a content engine, a relationship machine, and something you own instead of rent
• The mistakes that kill shows early, none of which are about talent or gear
• Why perfectionism kills more shows than bad content ever has
• The five-move playbook: batch, record clip-first, change your scoreboard, send yourself proof, commit to a number instead of a feeling

If you have a camera collecting dust, a show you walked away from, or you have been meaning to start and haven't, this one is for you.

Chris Hanna is the founder of All In Content, a done-for-you video, social media management, and podcast production company serving Windsor-Essex.

Book a studio session: https://studio.allincontent.ca

Book a consultation: https://calendly.com/chris-hanna/all-in-content-consultation

Film one day. Dominate for months.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

1. The full episode was never the asset. The clips were.
2. Every show goes flat before it goes up. Quitting during the flat part is quitting on schedule.
3. "It's too hard to find guests" is almost never the real reason.
4. An ad is rent. A podcast is ownership. A clip from January can book a call in November.
5. Commit to a number, not a feeling. Fifty episodes before you judge anything.

For more information about Chris Hanna, visit https://chrishanna.ca

If you want to batch-record video content and have our team schedule them on social media, remember that one day of working with us will set you up for months of consistent content. Visit https://allincontent.ca today to get started. Let's go all in together.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:06

Welcome to the Chris Hannah Show for Business as Usual Swift in the ass. You're tired of this table of lights and ready to disrupt that quote. You're in the right place. I'm cutting through the noise of old strategies, unfiltered food, and a no-nonsense approach to entrepreneurship, video marketing, and content creation. Buckle up because it's time to level up. Stand out and dominate your market. This isn't just another podcast, it's a wake-up call for entrepreneurs and would-be inspiring solopreneurs who were all in. Let's get started. Most business podcasts are dead before episode 10. Not because they failed, but because the person behind them quit right before it started to work. On this week's episode of the Chris Hannah Show, I am talking all things podcast. You see, I've watched it happen up close. A show that was definitely working, that was actually pulling in lots of views and clips per week, shut down because owners looked at the number and got discouraged and walked away. So today I want to talk about why that happens, why it almost always is a mistake, and what to do instead when it comes to your podcast. Because if you have a show that's collecting dust or you've been thinking about quitting, this episode is definitely for you. So for those who haven't tuned in in a while and I haven't posted in a while, I'll just remind everybody I'm Chris Hanna. I run all-in content, and I also have a studio here in Windsor, Essex, where we produce video and podcasts for business owners. So I don't just have opinions about this, I definitely have a front row seat, which I absolutely love to do. I love to produce these shows for a living. I love to see behind the curtain, be the first person to hear an episode go live, and I get to see what wins, what doesn't, what stalls out. And I ultimately hear also when sometimes owners decide to quit their podcast. You see, a podcast is one of the few marketing assets that a small business can actually own outright. And I think quitting is leaving money on the table. Definitely, it's a thing that I try and struggle with because I'm like, I struggle with the idea of having owners give up on something that I know that's going to produce them value in time. Look, look, I produce podcasts, and so I know I'm biased in obviously everything I'm going to be saying during this episode, but I'm not here to convince anyone that they need video or they need podcasts today. Like I'm here to stop people from actually killing something that I know 100% is working for them. Because there are people who want to have a podcast, but then get discouraged because they see, oh, well, you know, it's a lot of hard work, or they hear someone say that. And, you know, you're trying to run a business and you're trying to do marketing, and podcasting might be an avenue you want to explore, but people don't even bother trying it, or the ones who do give up way too early. Because the pattern I see quite often is this is that a show might stop after a dozen or a couple dozen or 40 episodes or whatever it's going to be. And different businesses have different reasons for why they might want to do it. Some quit because, you know, they find it's hard on their time, even though you record, you know, a couple hours here and there. Uh, some people find it hard to find guests. Some people are struggling with the format or other distractions of things that they need to do. There's so many different reasons why people could do it, right? Like it might be not enough value, not much time, too hard to find those guests, as those are stated reasons that I've kind of gone over. But the truth is, I think in a lot of cases, they don't look at the bigger picture. See, a podcast itself, a long-form piece of content, whether it is and ideally should be, a video that then gives you audio, you should be clipping that into multiple short form clips that you can put out across social media, which those then pull in thousands of views individually, and proves that in a lot of ways that the show is working for you. You see, a podcast can be a way to ultimately have social media content at scale by doing it quite easy because it's more conversational style, it's more natural in format, and it's something that's going to resonate with people. Now it depends on your format. You could do what I always do here, which is more of a solo show, even though in the future I'll be making another podcast that does have guests. Or you could have, like I said, guests and making it more back and forth with somebody or multiple people. The problem I hate though is when I see businesses quit. They give up and they quit a winner. You know, maybe they look at the overall numbers and they're like, wow, our overall numbers, we're not getting lots of views. But you're getting lots of clips and views on social media, which is where the attention is. Social media is where people live, it's where they decide whether they like a brand or not, or they want to dive deeper. So people watch the short form stuff because they don't have much of an attention span for the long form. The ones who are super dedicated will tune in though. So I think people need to look at it is that the full episode was never the asset. It's the clips that were. And if you're judging your podcast by how many people watch that hour-long version, I think you're reading the one number design that's really there to discourage you. I think though, nobody really quits a podcast because they think it failed. They quit because they got bored before it paid off. So let me break it down. What I think is actually happening. I think people are looking at the wrong scoreboard. They watch the long form views on, say, YouTube or on Spotify or wherever. And that is the slowest metric. Instead of looking at the clips, the saves, the shares, the comments, maybe even some of the calls that get booked. The other reason that they give up is the dip. You see, every show hits a stretch where the reps stop feeling exciting and the audience still feels small. That feeling gets mistaken for failure when it's the actual toll right before things start to compound. I see this all the time. The first few episodes that somebody launches a podcast get a lot of traction. They get a lot of views, a lot of comments, people get excited. But by episode four, five, six, seven, you start to find that you're struggling a little bit with viewership. For some reason, viewership tanked. And you're like, what happened? Well, most times you see that the promotion that went up front to really get a show off the ground dies off. And now you're just posting weekly. You know, new episode out Monday, and here's a couple clips throughout the week, and that's it. You have to continually keep up momentum, which can be tough as you're trying to promote other aspects maybe of your business. That can be a challenge. The other reason that people often quit is the guest excuse. And this is something that I've heard a lot of. I've heard it actually from four different podcasts that we've produced. It's too hard to find guests, is almost, I think, never the real reason why a podcast dies. I've even offered businesses help. I've sent them guests and referred them guests, and still they decide to end the show. When the help is available and someone still quits, the problem definitely is not logistics, then. It's that they maybe never felt the value. Another reason that a podcast can die is that there's no system. They treated it like a hobby. So it gets their leftover time, their leftover energy, and the leftover effort produces leftover results. I've seen it where some people come in to a session and they're not prepared, right? They're not prepared in terms of knowing the guests that they're interviewing, knowing what kind of story and questions and where they're going to talk about. And if you don't come in prepped, ready to go, I think that your conversation with somebody, especially when it comes to a guest, falls flat. And sometimes you pick the wrong guest, right? The wrong guest, I'm not saying that some people are just not meant to be like on a podcast or on a show, but I'm saying that some people shouldn't be your guest because maybe they're, especially early on, they're not going to help you grow. You need to have a guest that's going to share the podcast. I had produced one podcast with somebody who they would bring guests on, and every guest that they brought on had no social media presence at all. So therefore, we couldn't tag them. We couldn't really get any traction for their show because no one's sharing it beyond the main person. You need to have the guest also there's because you're leveraging their audience. The other reason that I think some people quit their show is that they strive for perfectionism. Because one flat episode or one stumble convinced them the whole thing was definitely not good enough when they're being way too hard on themselves. Here's the thing that should bother you, though, if you do have a podcast. Every one of the reasons that I just listed is fixable. Not one of them means that the podcast didn't work, it just means that the owner didn't have a way to see that it did. So let's reset what a podcast even is. Because I think that's important here at this juncture. Because if you think it's a show, you'll quit. If you understand what it actually is, you won't. So the way we work in our studio is what we like to do is batch record. So I'll usually advise clients to record two to three max podcast episodes in a session. So say they're doing 45-minute episodes. Let's block out four hours of the day, and they can come in and record one, have a bit of a break, record another, have another break, and then record a final one. Any more than three, I think you become, I'm gonna say, like lack of energy almost is gonna happen kind of by the fourth one. Like you really, really struggle. Uh, it becomes exhausting for people. So that one day of recording produces three long form episodes, but then each episode might get, let's call it 10 clips for social media. And of course, then we take the audio and we put that on Spotify and we put that on Apple Podcasts for you. If you wanted to, we don't do this, but some people do. They do quote graphics from it. Uh, you definitely, if you've got an email list, you want to hit your email list up every week with, you know, hey, here's the latest podcast that's out. You could turn episodes into blog posts if need be. Then there's obviously images like your thumbnail and everything that can be created from it. You could have different stories, behind the scenes content, all from just, you know, sitting in a chair talking to somebody during your podcast. You know, I think the recording, though, is just a small part of the content. It's more the source than anything else. And so, you know, one hour, let's call it, that encompasses of say a 45-minute podcast and some pre and post conversation with a guest, it gives you weeks of content for your business. But the content is only really half the value. The other half is the room. See, if you try cold emailing someone you admire versus inviting them onto your show, one is gonna get ignored, the other gets a yes and an hour of full attention. Every guest is a relationship you could not have bought, plus referrals to the next two guests. Because sometimes your guest comes in, you have a great conversation, and they say, Oh, you should have so-and-so on your show next. They'd be a great for you. It's also important to realize that an ad is rent, it spikes while you pay and dies when you stop. So a podcast is really about ownership for you more than anything else. So a clip you posted in January can still book a call in November. There's some long-form value, I think, that can come from it. Because ultimately a podcast compounds. And I know, I know this because the first 10 episodes is gonna feel like you're pushing a boulder uphill. But then the library and the reputation start stacking, and episode 50 does more for you than episode five ever could because it stands on all the ones before it. Flat, flat, flat, then up. Like that's ultimately how you're gonna see that the podcast starts to grow. It's the shape of every podcast that's worth having. The people who quit, they quit during the flat part, which is the one part you're guaranteed to go through when you're building a show. Now, I think that there's also a challenge that I think that people make a bunch of mistakes with their show as well. I've hit on some of them, but I'll kind of you know cover some new ones here as well. The first is what I call a post and pray. You know, they record for an hour, let's say, they upload the whole thing, they share it once, and then they wait. And that's not a strategy, that's what I call prayer. The job starts after you stop recording. Some people also have no clip strategy. So if you're not cutting episodes into clips, you did all the hard work and you skip the part that actually travels. And some people, when it comes to guests, they only want to chase the famous ones. Here's the reality: you don't even need a big name sometimes. You just need a relevant one. A local owner, your customers recognize, beats a celebrity that they don't. And then there's the people who do the record one and just wait. One episode gives you nothing to fall back on when you get busy. So, like I said, we advise everyone to batch record. Fill them a bunch in a span of a couple of hours, and then a slow week doesn't really break your streak. You can keep everything going. The one that kind of I think hurts some people who posted frequently is what I call random publishing. The algorithms for all the platforms out there in your audience reward rhythm and being repetitive and almost training your audience. So pick a cadence you can hold and hold it, even when an episode feels average. You're better off putting an episode out each week as opposed to, well, we're gonna put it out this week, but we're gonna skip next week. Don't do that. I mentioned the word earlier, perfectionism. And I think it's important to kind of pause and highlight this for a second here. I want to spend a minute on it or so, because I think it kills more shows than bad content ever has. You see that stumble that you obsessed on for over an hour? Nobody noticed it but you. Your audience replayed nothing because they never clocked it. They never even heard it. The episode you think is your worst might be somebody's favorite. I've had that happen, which I find strange, but people are like, oh, I really love this episode. I was like, oh man, I thought that one sucked. But I put it out there still, and people got some value from it and they talked to me about it. Sometimes the part that connects with people is never the polished part. It's the realness. More than anything, I think Dunn beats perfect every single day. A good episode that ships beats a perfect one sitting in a folder. Far too much content dies in a folder in a Google Drive somewhere. Perfectionism is usually just, you know, wearing a nicer outfit. One flat episode is not a verdict on your show either. It's one data point. I don't think you shut down a restaurant over one slow Tuesday. I also believe that it's okay to leave the small mistakes in. They're what make you sound like a person instead of an ad. And if you can get past it and you can publish the one that you're a little scared of, that's probably the one that's ultimately gonna connect for you. So if you're listening to this, you've got a podcast, and you're like, you know what, Chris, you're right. I'm not gonna quit. What do you do? Well, here's what I think you should do instead. This is what I'll call, I guess, the playbook, we'll call it. One, batch your recording, block off a day or a couple hours, line up your topics, line up your guests, record back to back, and walk out with a month of episodes done that are set up, ready to go, and you're all in the zone. And then think about the clips. I think that's the next important part. You know, whether you are talking to the guest or you're doing it yourself, restate each question before you answer it and make every point a complete thought. Because then your editor pulls clean clips and you're producing clips while you record. I always do this when I'm a guest on a show. Because I'll always ask everybody, say, hey, if I'm gonna be on your show, I would like to do raw recording because I'd like to come up with some clips from it. I will think and talk in sound bites, is what I call it, so that I know like that's a clip that I'm gonna want to go back and use and put on social media. The third thing that you need to do in terms of the playbook is change your scorecard. Stop watching the long form view number. Watch the clips, the saves, the shares, the comments. Maybe the people who book a call after you're they're binging all your stuff. Next, uh, send yourself proof. Even a simple monthly recap of what your clips did keeps the value visible so you never talk yourself into quitting. Lastly, commit to a number, not a feeling. Decide you're filming 50 episodes before you judge anything. Take the quit decision off the table for the part where it's supposed to feel slow. Like, don't even give yourself an option. Like, you might struggle in episode 20 and 30, but you're saying, you know what, I'm seeing this through for a whole year. I'm gonna do 50 episodes. You do those five things, and the pattern I open this episode up with does not happen to you. You don't become an episode 40 or 20 or 30 or whatever in a graveyard. You become the business everyone in your market already feels like they know because that's what the podcast does. It helps people know you. Picture two business owners today. One starts a podcast and keeps going, same industry as you, one waits for the right time. Five years from now, one is a library of trust, a network, and a market that knows their name. The other still keeps saying they're gonna start. So the difference is never really the resources or the talent. It's the decision to stay in it even when it felt painful, even when it felt slow, not to quit. There's no reason for any good business to feel invisible. Like I said, you can record all of this in a couple of hours just to get ahead, and then you let it work for you for the next number of weeks and months. That's the whole game. Like if you've got a camera that's collecting dust or a show you walked away from, or you've been meaning to start and you just haven't, we can also talk. You know, I'll help you build something that you don't want to quit. If you do want to connect, you can visit our website, allincontent.ca, or you can book Studio Time at our studio site as well. Again, I'm Chris Hanna. This has been the Chris Hanna Show. We're talking about podcasting today and all the reasons why people quit and ways that you can avoid quitting. Don't give up on your show. I'd love to hear your successes and see you get past episode 50 and beyond. Alright, that's a wrap for today's Dose of Reality on the Chris Hannah Show. If you're fired up and ready to kick some serious ass, then I've done my job. But remember, knowledge without action is just wasted breath. So what are you gonna do? Sit around and let opportunities pass you by, or you're gonna step up and take what's yours. The choice is yours. But don't expect sympathy if you choose to eat zero. If you've got value from today's episode, smash that subscribe button, leave a review, or share it with somebody who needs a wake-up call. Don't keep this gold to yourself unless you're afraid of a little competition. Stay bold, stay hungry, and remember, always go all in. Until next time, this is Chris Hannah signing off. Now go out there and take what's yours.