The Best (and Worst) Podcast Feedback We've Ever Received

It is question of the month time. That's where I

ask you a question and you reply. And this month's question

was all about feedback, and it's what's the most constructive

piece of feedback you've received, as well as the most

destructive feedback you've ever received. So I'm going to share

mine, and we have a few people that shared theirs, and I'm

going to embarrass myself just so you can learn the importance

of feedback. Hit it, ladies.

The SOP Singers: The School of Podcasting with Dave Jackson.

Podcasting since 2005. I am your award-winning

Hall of Fame podcast coach Dave Jackson, thanking you so very,

very much for tuning in. If you're new to the show, this is

where I help you plan, launch, grow, and monetize your show.

The website, courtesy of PodPage.com, is

SchoolOfPodcasting.com, and if you go over there and use the

coupon code listener on either a monthly, quarterly, or yearly

subscription, that'll save you some money. And today is the

question of the month. If you're new to the show, this is where I

throw out a question, you answer it, and you get some free

exposure. That's the thing I think that always kind of

boggles my mind is people are like, how can I get the word out

about my show? And I have just added a new show to kind of my

app. I use Pocket Cast, by the way. And where where did I hear

about it on another podcast? And today we have three answers, so

I'm here just to not to shame you and not to make you feel

bad, but just to say, if you heard me do the question of the

month last month, you've had a month, a month to record a quick

answer, and have me say your website. So you will hear that

later, and it's free publicity to people who listen to

podcasts, so keep that in mind. And the question of the month

for September, and it's kind of about feedback. I am always

somewhat kind of confused as to why people do not get feedback

on their show, and by that, I realize some of us ask for

feedback and don't get any, and we'll talk maybe a little bit

about that. But also, there are people that don't even ask, and

then they want to know why their show isn't growing. So this is

this month's question, and that's fine if you haven't done

one. I'm just letting you know it makes sense. Picture yourself

in the kitchen, and you're making someone a sandwich, and

you go, "Hey, I've got baloney, I've got smoked turkey and

salami. Which one do you want? They go, "Oh, I love smoked

turkey. Oh, okay, and so you make a sandwich that they will

eat, and there are times when you're handing people salami,

going, "Hey, here's a salami. Tell your friends, and they in

their head they're like, "Yeah, I I hate salami. So we're gonna

start off the question with my buddy Ralph Eastep Jr. You know

him as the content creator's accountant. Take it away, Ralph.

Ralph Estep Jr.: Hey, Dave, it's Ralph Eastep Jr. and I'm

responding to your question of the month, I got to be honest.

When I look back at my several years of podcasting, I would say

the best advice I received or the best feedback I ever got was

when somebody told me go hire a speaking coach. Because to be

very candid with you, I was struggling to find my voice. I

was struggling to figure out just how do I start the

conversation? How do I do those things? And I found a lady, and

she was fantastic, and it has absolutely changed the way I do

things. And that was feedback. That was people saying to me,

"Ralph, you sound very robotic. They said, "And you were one of

those people, Dave. You said, 'Ralph, you don't sound like

when I see you in a Zoom call when I see you in person, so

that was probably the most beneficial advice I've ever

received. Now on the other side of that, I've gotten some pretty

nasty feedback from people about my religious affiliations and

the things I talk about. Some people have told me they hope a

bus runs me over, and other people have said I hope they I

hope you get hit by lightning, so obviously I'm not going to

take that advice. So, as with anything, when you get feedback,

understand who's giving you that feedback, and study it and see

does it make sense to actually embrace the feedback? Because

the truth of the matter is, and you and I actually talked about

this at the conference when we were talking about question of

the month, I for the life of me don't understand people who

don't want to get feedback. I think feedback is a fantastic

thing, and helps us grow as human beings, and certainly

helps us grow as content creators. So those are my

answers. If you want to find out more about me, you can go to

RalphEistepJunior dot. Again, that's Ralph Estep E S T E P J

r.com, and make sure you check out our new show, Becoming

Financially Confident. It is every day, Monday through

Friday, 1130 a.m. Eastern Time. It's a live show, and you can

find that@becomingfinanciallyconfident.com.

Thank you, Dave. Look forward to talking to you soon, my friend

Ralph. Thank you so much. So you can hear there.

He got a little bit of feedback. His show is improving. He's

probably having more fun. It's not quite as stressful. And

yeah, and you will get feedback like you know, hey buddy, go

jump in a lake. And you don't always have to take that advice.

Next up, we have York. Hi,

Dave. This is York from Welcome to Earth Stories. The

best advice that I received is to change the name of my show.

Before, it was called Poetic Earthlings, but people

weren't-they weren't getting it because of the title. They

thought it was about poetry. I should have known that. You

know, sometimes you get so enamored by a name because you

thought of how clever it is and how much it means to you on an

emotional level. But I didn't stop to think: Would people

understand what I'm talking about? When a friend of mine

said, "What about if you change it to 'Welcome to Earth'

stories? It just made sense because my stories-they're about

time traveling, alien worlds, and hyperdimensional creatures,

and things of that nature, with conspiracy theories thrown in as

well. Once I changed the name and followed the advice of my

fellow podcaster, I received a lot more attention, a lot more

downloads, just because I changed the name. If you want to

hear short sci-fi stories, then listen to Welcome to Earth

Stories season nine just launched last week. All the

details could be found@welcometoearthstories.com.

Thanks, Dave.

Thank you, York. Next up, some call him Tim.

Timothy Kemo Brian: Hey, Dave. This is Timothy Kimel Bryan,

your head instigator from Create Art Podcast, where I help my

listeners tame their inner critic and create more than you

consume. You can find that@createartpodcast.com. So,

Dave, I love this question because it has a little

something to do with you, so I submitted my old show KDOI

podcasting to the podcast rodeo show.

Now rebranded fixmypodcast.com.

Timothy Kemo Brian: You said something to the effect of that

you didn't know what KDOI was kind of sounded like a radio

station, and then when I said chemo's den of iniquity, it kind

of sounded like something out of a BDSM kind of thing. So

initially, you called my baby ugly, and I was not happy with

you. I remember we. I was doing another podcast called

Podwrecked, and we were interviewing you. And yeah, I

was not a happy camper, but you know what? I got over it. I

actually was sitting at a podcast conference. I was

sitting at Icon Independent Podcast Conference up in

Atlantic City, when I was hearing somebody say something

about you know the title of your show should be you know

something memorable something that you know people can dive

into. Heck, it might have even been you, and I thought, well,

what does KDI podcasting do? It's an art podcast. I talk

about creating art. Oh, create art podcast. Three guesses as to

what that podcast is about, and the first two don't count. So

that was some great advice that you gave me. Even though at the

time I was a little too precious about my podcast, and ever since

I have changed it, it's really taken off. I'm getting about

between 1015 100 downloads a month, which at the time that

you had called my baby ugly, I might have been getting 200,

maybe 300 downloads a month. Now, is it because of the name

change? Not necessarily,

but I'm going to say. Probably,

Timothy Kemo Brian: but it really helped me focus on what

the podcast was about. So that is some very constructive advice

that I got from you. So I want everybody to know about it, and

I want to say thank you. I want to apologize for being mad at

you for calling my baby ugly, but you know what? Sometimes

your babies have to be called ugly, and you know me-I wear a

T-shirt that says "I make cute babies. So now I do with your

help. That sounded weird. Anyhow, have a great one, Dave,

and thanks for all you do, and thanks for helping me name my

podcast,

Tim. Thank you so much. When it comes to what I

felt was super, what's the word? Helpful feedback. I believe it

was Podfest. It haven't hadn't even started yet, and I see my

buddy Steve Stewart, he says, "Can we go to lunch? And I go,

"Yeah. And he said, "Hey, are you open to any kind of notes?

Well, I grew up with the mantra. The very first job I had out of

college, they had this all over the walls: constant improvement.

Better known for some of you, if you're fans of the the movie

Dead Poet Society, Carpa Diem, Carpe Diem, baby, and so that's

that's all. I'm always open to notes, and so Steve said, I

think the curmudgeon, meaning me getting a little frustrated on

the mic, maybe he said, "I think the curmudgeon is coming out a

little quicker than it used to, and for me, that is something I

control. That's something I need to know because we'll talk about

this in a second. I'll talk about some advice that I gave

that actually made me almost stop a podcast because a

listener came at me so hard. I was like, I think I'm done with

this. We'll talk about that in a second. But this was something I

could control and something from. And I, I really, Tim just

mentioned it. Ralph mentioned it. You have to consider the

source, and you need somebody's opinion that you know will tell

you when this is good, and they'll also tell you when it's

not good. And I really value Steve Stewart's opinion. And he

was like, "Hey, man, the the curmudgeon's coming out a little

quick these days. And I was like, "Man, that is something I

can control, something I can fix because I never want the

curmudgeon to stop you from going? You know, I think I want

to work with Dave. I'm honest, you know. Tim just talked about

how I called his baby ugly, and what I said was this doesn't

make sense. And well, you'll hear some of my opinions, and

we're going to talk about. And we've talked about this in the

past, but this is a good place to bring this up. The key to

feedback is how you react to it, right? Knowledge is power.

Knowledge is only power when you act on it. So that was the best

feedback I got. The worst feedback I I've received, and it

really wasn't even great feedback, but it was the first

time I'd received something negative, and I had to go look

it up. It is from 2010, so I'd been podcasting for five years,

and this is where I kind of now say you're not a real podcaster

until you get a one star review. But from Jay Widgett, he said

not good, not enough thought. It's a commercial for bad

services that was from March of 2010, and so when I heard that,

a it's when you just say it's not good. Okay, I get that, but

like, why is it not good? That would be something I could then

fix, but like, hey, you suck is not really very constructive.

But that one, I was like, he said I was bad. He said I'm a

bad commercial. I'm like, I'm spending all this time on this.

It really kind of knocked me back on my heels a little bit.

And when I went looking through my reviews and Apple Podcasts.

One of the things you want to keep in mind, because I get

this. I've worked in customer support for decades among many

different companies, and there are sometimes when somebody's

just having a bad day. I remember once this was recently

a pod page, and somebody said, "Why is it taking so long to

reply, and I literally replied like in two minutes, and I was

kind of like, "I'm sorry that it, you know, I'm here now. And

he even said later, "Like, hey, you know what? I'm having a bad

day. I'm sorry. Obviously, you guys are replying much quicker

than most people. So keep in mind, somebody may be." Having a

bad day, but great feedback is like this one from 2017. So I

really want to listen to this podcast, but so often the sound

mix seems to have either a hiss or too much treble. Can the

sound quality be improved?

Now that's great feedback from Jim the halfling. The thing that

Jim should have done is sent it to me directly, because there

are some people I know. Some people obsess over their

reviews. I am not one of them, but I like them. They're social

proof. Please keep in mind reviews do not help you get

found. People still repeat that. Apple has said no, it doesn't.

So for feedback to work, it has to get to the right person, and

so make sure if you want to receive feedback that you have

something in place to receive that, and then when somebody

says something nice about you, be sure to save that someplace

because there are going to be days when you're like, ugh, time

to make the podcast, and you just don't feel like it, and

when you go back and review it, it reminds you there are people

listening, and when you get feedback that's not really

helpful, you know, just keep in mind that a that person might

have been having a bad day. Two, do they have a point? Like in

this case, this guy's like now this was from like 10 years ago.

Hey, your show's a little tinty for me. You know, it's a little

too bright. And that was back probably when I was using the

Electro Voice RE 320, and I liked that sound. I liked my S's

and T's very clear. He did not, but had I seen that probably

back then, I could adjust that. So that's the thing. Do they

have a point? Great. Can I fix this? Yeah. Yeah,

yeah, yeah.

So on march 5, 2017, I launched a show that was

not supposed to be a real show. The name of it was the Podcast

Rodeo Show, where I grab a random podcast and see how long

I can hang on. But Podcast Rodeo Show is not a good name.

Everybody thought it was about the rodeo. I didn't really care.

It was going to be a show at the time. I believe Captivate was

brand new, and I needed a show to just basically try it out.

And so, just to give you an idea of this, and again, kind of

focusing on feedback, you'll hear me say good and bad

feedback here, and this is the trailer for the podcast rodeo

show, which is now Fix My Podcast. On the podcast rodeo

show, we grab a random podcast and see how long we can hang on,

and I give you a real life first impression. Didn't expect that.

All right, this is not your grandpa's faith podcast. I'm

digging it so far.

We discussed how cheesecake is actually a really

great thing to have in your home.

Okay, you had me, and you said you brought her on

because she knows this cool survival stuff, and then you

didn't tell me the other things that she's going to tell me

about, and now you're talking about cheesecake.

Timothy Kemo Brian: Um, so we didn't really have anything to

talk about. We were going because this episode is coming

out on Black Friday,

and that, my friends, is the phrase that

pays. The minute you go, I'm not really sure what I'm going to

talk about. I am out of here because that means that you're

going to waste 45 minutes of my time. Holy cow! Well, first of

all, great intro. Here's the key to this. I want to hear the rest

of this episode. Do you? I do. The Podcast Rodeo Show. Find

it@podcastrodeoshow.com. So you can hear, and I tried, without

being too harsh, to just think out loud. So I think about it

now. Half of YouTube is just reaction videos, and I would

like to say I invented, which I'm sure I didn't, but I'll take

credit for it. Back in 2017, I was doing reaction podcasts, and

I'm not going to say the name of the show, but there was a show

that within the first I'm going to say three minutes, a person

and I feel bad for all of these. They were talking about

different ways of learning, and so she announced that when she

was growing up, she was probably in the fourth or fifth grade.

Her mother had cancer. That's horrible. Between eighth grade

and 12th grade, she had moved multiple times. That's a

horrendous stress on a little kid. Her sister died in an

accident. Horrible, and then even later when she was in

college, she was attacked. That's horrendous. The problem

was I heard this again in less than probably four minutes,

which is a lot to take in. And the other thing that I pointed

out was. Well, here it is. Yeah, I don't get it. And as I look at

the show notes, I'm like, "What? So, yeah. Um, I I screw up on

the phone. She actually apparently this is an interview,

and nowhere in her introduction did she say, "Today we're going

to be talking with Adele Myers, founder and artistic director at

the Miami-based dance company. Okay, so yeah, this first of

all, I'm sorry to hear all the negative things that have

happened in your life, but the teacher and me, I think every

every presentation is either made great or completely blown

opportunity by the setup, and so it's like, hey, welcome to the

show. People think I I think sideways. Here's a bunch of crap

that happened to me, and I'm like, why am I listening to

this? What's the show about? Who is this for? And and the whole

thing is like, oh, you'll get this after I get to know you.

Well, why would I stick around to get to know you when there's

nothing for me here? Like, I don't get it. What's in it for

me? Remember, that's the radio station that you're broadcasting

on. WIFM. What's in it for the listener? And at this point, I'm

like, I don't know why I'm here, and I don't know what I'm going

to get. And I will use my buddy Eric K. Johnson, the podcast

talent coach. One of my favorite lines: Nobody gets on a bus if

they don't know where it's going, and I don't know what

this show is about. I may have just found it in Apple or

wherever and clicked play, and there there was no definition of

like, here's what the show is about, and here's what we're

going to talk about today, and here's how you're going to

benefit. So, yeah, this this has, and also your sound is is

borderline bad, but and all of this is an easy fix. That's the

beautiful thing about this show. I want to help you make the best

episodes possible, and it's rarely like oh, we can't fix

this. It's always all you need to do is maybe invest in a

better microphone. If you go out to podcast rodeo show, you'll

see I have some guides there on gear, and then just a matter of

getting to the point and explaining to people how they're

going to benefit. Who doesn't want to benefit? We all want to

benefit, so let people know. Here's what you're listening to.

Here's why you're listening to it, and here's how you're going

to benefit. So I would actually like to listen to this show

because just between her her description and things like

this, my guess is that this is somebody who probably wants to

turn this into some sort of monetary thing. And I don't

know.

It's going to be interesting, but this show is all about first

impressions, and my first impression was not great. So I

would go back to the drawing board, spice up your your audio

a little bit, come up with an intro that lets people know what

the show is about, what the episode is about, and then get

to don't bury the lead. You got an interview here, so I'm not

sure why the point was. I here's why I know why. This is what

happened. Somebody said you need to get your story out there.

People don't care about you until your story is out there.

No, people don't care about you until you give them a reason to

care. So when you give me something of value that I'm

like, oh, I didn't know that. I'm gonna have to go try that.

Wow, that saved me time. Wow, that saved me money now. I want

to know about you because you seem pretty cool. But to just

hey, here I am. Guess what? This happened and that happened, and

that's not really. It didn't resonate with me. I'll just

leave it that way. So as I listen back to this, everything

she mentioned at the beginning of her show was very emotional,

if you think about it, and all of my feedback was very logical.

You're not connecting this. You're not getting to the point.

Things like that, and this person emailed me and attacked

me personally, saying how cruel I was, how I shouldn't have, I

shouldn't never even consider calling myself a teacher. You

know, basically, you know, you should stop doing this, and you

really hurt me. And one of the things that I always try to do

by being transparent is to let you hear my heart. I'm any time

if I ever give you any positive or negative feedback, it's

because I'm trying to help you make a better show, so that you

can make a better connection with your audience, so that you

can grow your audience. Now, am I always right? No, I'm always

giving you the best feedback I can give you based on all the

studies that I do on podcasting, which is 20 years of basically

listening every day to multiple podcasts about podcasting. I've

got a bookcase in my office if you. Ever see me do something

live? I've read every single one of those books. I study

podcasting. I study storytelling. I study SEO. I

study AI. Now, these are the things I study. And when I see

somebody doing something that I don't feel is good in the long

run, or that they may not realize, I explain it to them,

and when I listen back to my feedback now, I remember

thinking this was really, really harsh. And when I listen to it

now, I go, "Yeah, I could have been a little more transparent,

a little more compassionate about the fact that she'd gone

through such horrible things. But she came at me hard, and I

literally was like, "Oh, the last thing I want to do is to

think some, you know, have somebody think I'm an old

curmudgeon that's just gonna, you know, rip your show to

shreds. And that's not what I'm doing. And that's where that

show actually eventually came to an end. Although, as I listened

to it, I'm like, "Man, that was fun, but it's one of those

things that I asked my audience. I said, "Hey, because when in

doubt, ask your audience. And I said, "Would you like a kindler,

gentler version of the podcast rodeo show? And my audience very

loudly said, "No, this is you. You are saying what we're

thinking, and that's what makes this show at the time kind of

radical. And so I did it. Now I did think before it was

literally listen, react, listen, react, and now it's a little

okay. What do we want to say here? What do we want them to To

learn, and I also rebranded it. It's funny, I rebranded it to

Podcast Hot Seat, and I heard people say that sounds painful,

so I changed it to Fix My Podcast. And so, if you're

looking, you're like, "Hey, I want to hear Podcast Rodeo Show.

It's still there, podcastrodeoshow.com. But if you

actually want an audit, you would go to fixmypodcast.com.

So that person, understandably, I guess I don't really know what

was going on. Remember, somebody may have been having a bad day,

came at me hard, said I was a horrible human being, I should

get out of teaching, and that I just I'm going. It was just

nasty to the point where it's like, ooh, I never want to be

seen this way, and I was worried that the podcast rodeo show was

hurting my brand. Like, who would want to learn from Dave

Jackson? He's a mean old curmudgeon, and luckily, my

audience said, "You're not a mean old curmudgeon. You're just

stating the truth. And so, that's one way to handle

feedback is to attack the person giving you feedback.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

On another episode of the podcast rodeo

show, I was listening to a show by a guy named Scott Orr. Now

Scott is-he's a decorated journalist, really nice guy, and

really loved firefighters. He he covered wanted to be he wanted

to be a firefighter. When you can't be a firefighter, well,

you know maybe he could basically talk to them. So he

did a show called Code Three, the Firefighter Podcast, and he

had me review his show multiple times, and on the first one, I

actually before I reached out and you know did kind of a first

impression, I reached out to Scott and said, "What is going

on? And Scott, I don't mean this disrespectful, but you sound

like you're drunk, and Scott replied to me. He goes, "No,

man, I don't have an alcohol problem. I have Parkinson's. And

I said, "Oh, well, that makes so much more sense. You might want

to address that at the beginning of your show, now Scott could

have said, "What do you mean? I sound drunk? You're a horrible

human being. You should quit teaching. You make me feel bad.

You're reminding me that I had Parkinson's. But instead, Scott

took the feedback, and here's how he starts his show,

hosted by award-winning journalist Scott Ord. Now here's

Scott.

That's right, and I will not let Parkinson stop me. Welcome back

to another episode of Code Three.

And later we talked about this because Scott

went from the podcast rodeo show to the podcast review show,

which is a show I do with Eric K Johnson, and Eric brought up

kind of the obvious point.

Erik K. Johnson: I wouldn't think the the fact that you

mention it right up front, Scott, is disarming, and you

address the elephant in the room right away, so people aren't

going, "Man, what is going on? Like, what Scott is three sheets

to the wind recording this show. Like, come on, buddy, like sober

up before you record, and then you are like, "No, I have part."

Disease. So, if that were 10 minutes into the episode, that's

all I would be focusing on is why the speech impediment. But

you hit it right up front, and then we're like, "Oh, all right.

Well, then that now makes sense. And then we just roll on, and we

don't think a second thing of it.

Can you see how that's good feedback? It's

helpful. Now, is it honest? Yeah. Is it awkward? Yeah, to

go. Hey, dude, I know you have Parkinson's, but it's affecting

your speech to the point where how you're saying things is

affecting what you're saying. I can't get over the fact of how

you sound. So when he says, "Oh, by the way, I have Parkinson's,

you're like, oh, that explains a lot. Now I can go back to

focusing on what you're saying, not how you're saying it. And

this kind of feedback are the things that can help your show

grow. And a lot of times you do not see them. My favorite story

about feedback is when I had a typo in the name of the School

of Podcasting. It said, "Plan, launch, grow, and monetize

instead of monetize. Sometimes you don't see it. I'm going to

hit you with just a little more logic right after this.

All

right. It's funny because at the school of

podcasting, we do these things called listener parties, where

you can sign up, give me an episode to play, and then

whoever wants to can come and listen together. So we usually

have a handful of people that are sitting there and we're

listening, and you can watch us listen to your show. And I've

seen people actually kind of go, "Ye, like I don't want to do

that. But do you realize that when you put out your episode,

you know, episode six, and you haven't got any feedback yet,

there are people that are going to be listening to it, wouldn't

it be nice if you could see if it was good enough? So, since we

mentioned seize the day, we are dusting off some seriously old

cobwebs when a 25 maybe year old Dave Jackson had recording

equipment in his basement. And have you ever seen the episode

of Friends where Ross was playing the keyboard and he's

like, "I'm gonna work on my music. Yeah, I've I've now

realized that I was Ross growing up, and I would have my friends

listen to my music, man. Which was funny because for some

reason I was an angry teenager. I don't know if that's normal,

but here's the thing: I was an I'm an okay guitar player, but

as I listen back to these. It's hard to fathom this. I am

embarrassed in a room by myself, but I'm going to play a little

bit of this and then tell you. Now I'm not going to play the

whole song, but just some stuff to explain this. So the song

starts. It sounds very 1985. Just picture of you know a bunch

of smoke coming on a stage, white snake kind of stuff, you

know. But it's fine, and the fun part, of course, was I was

playing the bass, I was playing the guitar, I was programming

the drums, and unfortunately, I was doing all the singing, which

sounded like

this.

And apparently, I found the percussion button with

the little clicky clicks.

Ooh, that was not a good note.

Yeah, trying to be a little James Hetfield

there, whatever. Not sure what's going on, and the fun part is I

would bring my best friend in. God bless him, my brother maybe,

and so I knew. So I would hit play and I would leave the room.

I didn't want to watch them listen to my music because I

knew I was going to do something like this. Lots of echo, and

everything was always saved with a blistering guitar solo. So,

here we go, little young Dave Jackson. All right, that's

enough of that. They would say things like, "So wait a minute,

who's playing the piano? And I'd be like, "That's me. Who's

playing the strings? That's me. Who's playing guitar? Me, bass.

Me, drums. You know, machine, etc. They never said, "Wow,

those lyrics are amazing. You know, my favorite. There was one

I've been listening to these, going, "Man, what what was wrong

with young Dave Jackson? Can't you see the indie?" Can't you

give some recognition? Love to you means pure submission, while

the blind perform the circumcision. Like wow, okay,

Dave the poet, young young Dave the poet, that was hilarious.

But the point was, nobody gave me any honest feedback. I have

been there. I have lived that, and I now look back and go, "Oh

my gosh! They weren't giving any feedback on the music. It wasn't

until recently my brother found that CD and said, "You know,

these songs weren't that bad. He goes, "And your singing wasn't

that bad. He goes, "You're on key, kind of. He goes, "But the

mix, and I go, yeah. The mix was horrendous. Nobody said that at

the time. They did it, you know. 20. Let's be serious. 30 years

later, and that's a little too late. You need the feedback

because realize, as I sat here and listened to this, and was

like, ooh, cringe, ooh, cringe. If you don't get feedback before

you release the stuff, now I I don't want to scare the bejesus

out of you, so you never ever release an episode. But can you

see where feedback would have been a little helpful here, just

a little bit? And here's the scariest line ever: Whether you

do a listener party with your friends or whatever, or you

don't, you're going to be judged anyway. So wouldn't it make more

sense to be judged in a way that you could capture the feedback

and make the appropriate changes for maximum effectiveness. Now

that is awkward, and at times it's hard because you put so

much work into it. But put your emotions aside for the second.

Wouldn't it make more sense? And call me weird. I like things

that make sense. And brothers and sisters, I am here to help

you. One final example, and then we'll start to head out the

door. I shouldn't say that because a lot of you just hit

skip, but it's been like probably three years ago on july

4, which is a holiday here in the U.S. I fell on the sidewalk

and landed on my knees, and it was gross. There was blood

everywhere, and in theory, looking back, I should have gone

to some sort of medevac and had them stitch up my cuts, but I

didn't, and consequently, I still have scars on my knees.

It's taken a while for this to really heal up. That was

feedback. Feedback on what? It was feedback on looking at your

phone when you're walking up your street on a sidewalk that

is very uneven, and I don't do that anymore. Why? Because it's

called learning. It's called a lesson learned the hard way,

unfortunately. But if somebody had got me ahead of time and

said, "Hey, if you're going to be walking around this

neighborhood, you might want to seriously consider not looking

at your phone because you'll see right here where this particular

block of cement is about two inches taller than everything

else. And just to put my money where my mouth is, if you would

like to issue feedback on this show, now realize I'm doing this

near the end, so the question, do you think the show is too

long? Isn't really appropriate here because if you think it's

too long, you've already left.

But if you go to schoolofpodcasting.com/survey,

I'm using the built in survey from Pod Page, and I'm always up

to hearing feedback on how I can make this show better because

I'm doing this show for you again. I hope you can hear my

heart that I really do love to just try and help people and use

the knowledge that I have, you know, built up over a couple

decades here. And if you go to schoolofpodcasting.com and use

the coupon code Listener, you got a 30 day money back

guarantee when you sign up for either a monthly, quarterly, or

yearly subscription. Next episodes, we're going to be

talking about some of the results I've done trying to grow

my show, and one thing I did that took less than five minutes

got me exactly in front of my target audience. What was it?

You'll have to go over to schoolatpodcasting.com/follow,

and you'll get that episode the minute it's available. And if

you know somebody who should be getting feedback, simply go to

your. Click on the share button and share that with a friend.

Maybe it's kind of weird because I have given advice to people

and they won't do it, and then they'll hear the exact same

advice from somebody else and they will do it. So maybe you've

been saying you should get some feedback and then they don't,

and now you know you send them this message where I go, look,

look at how people benefited, like York and and Ralph and

everybody else that sent in something here. Tim, you know,

look how they benefited from a little feedback. You might give

that a shot, and with that, I'm going to stop because if I was

coaching me, I just gave you three calls to action, and

that's two too many. Oops. Until next week, class is dismissed.

Take care, and God bless. I've got a survey there. You can

feedback. You can feedback me. You can feedback me. We're gonna

start off with my buddy Ralph Eastep Jr. better known as the

pod the podcast creator's accountant, and I was doing so

good until I had to say his title. Hmm. Sorry, Ralph. They

didn't stop to think. Does this guy have a point, Alexa. Really?

Erik K. Johnson: Yeah.