Episode 164
Bad advice and fake gurus in the podcast world | Neal Veglio from Podknows Podcasting (Part 1)
How much bad advice is out there?
How many people are creating valuable content in podcasts?
We tend to think there is huge competition in the podcast space but the reality seems to be that there is very little valuable and quality content out there. Here is the opportunity.
Neal Veglio is a podcast coach, editor and educator with a long history in podcasting and also in the broadcasting world. He’s known for speaking his mind and being unafraid to speak out on the more negative aspects of the podcasting world.
If you’ve ever wondered who to trust for podcast and promotion advice or you are trying to spray content all over the internet and wondering why it doesn’t work, this is your episode.
Should you listen to Gary Vaynerchuck’s advice?
How you can easily game the Apple Podcasts charts (if you want to)?
Why a top UK podcast isn’t really a top UK podcast.
Find Neal on LinkedIn and at Podknows Podcasting
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You are warmly invited to join other coaching & speaking professionals who are building their authority through podcasting in the Podfluencers Facebook Group and get your free download of The Complete Podcast Guest Superstar Framework
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Transcript
If you've ever wondered who to trust for podcast and promotion advice,
John Ball:or you would try to spray content all over the internet and wondering why it
John Ball:doesn't work, this episode is for you.
John Ball:This is Podfluence, the show that helps you to grow your
John Ball:influence and income with podcasts.
John Ball:My name is John Ball and my mission is to help you, the self-employed
John Ball:business coach, to grow your influence and income so that you can have a
John Ball:continuously thriving coaching business.
John Ball:That said, if you are a service-based solopreneur, this
John Ball:content can certainly help you too.
John Ball:We tend to think that there is huge competition in the podcasting space,
John Ball:but the reality seems to be that there is far less valuable and quality
John Ball:content out there than we might think.
John Ball:Whilst this episode pulls back the curtain on some of the not so good
John Ball:aspects of the podcast world, It also highlights opportunities in
John Ball:podcasting, especially for business.
John Ball:In this episode, I'm joined by Neil Valio, who is a podcasting coach,
John Ball:an editor and educator who has a long history in the podcasting world
John Ball:and also in the broadcasting world.
Neal Veglio:I'm Neal Veglio, the founder of Podknows Podcasting.
Neal Veglio:we do full service podcast marketing.
Neal Veglio:if a brand or an individual wants to surface their brand in the podcast
Neal Veglio:apps Then I can help them do that.
John Ball:He's known for speaking his mind and being unafraid to speak out
John Ball:on the more negative aspects of the podcasting world, and he's one of my
John Ball:favorite people to follow on LinkedIn and Twitter for exactly those reasons.
John Ball:We discussed things like, should you even be listening to and taking advice
John Ball:from people like Gary Vaynerchuk, how you can easily game the Apple
John Ball:Podcast charts if you wanted to and why one of the top UK podcasts
John Ball:isn't really a top UK podcast.
John Ball:We cover that and so much more stuff.
John Ball:I had to split this episode into two parts because we don't wanna blow your brains.
John Ball:So do stay tuned for part two, which will be out very soon.
John Ball:If you do have your device in your hand right now, do me a solid and click the
John Ball:plus button on Apple Podcast or Spotify
John Ball:or whatever you have to press to subscribe on your preferred listing
John Ball:platform so that you can get weekly updates from Pod fluence as they drop.
John Ball:For now, plug in your EarPods and let's get started with part one of
John Ball:my conversation with Neil Valio.
John:Neil, thank you so much for coming and joining me on Podfluence.
John:I've really been looking forward to speaking to you, and I think people
John:are gonna understand why when we get into the conversation here.
John:And so we'll just preface by saying, you are one of my favorite
John:people to follow on online.
John:Oh.
John:And I just love the stuff that you post because you just don't care about
John:that you might piss some people off.
John:It's just like, I'm just gonna say things exactly as they are.
John:And I always appreciate that kind of radical honesty is like not horrible about
John:people just telling it like it really is.
John:And so I see that's part of your brand, part of your style online.
John:Has that been very intentional or is that kind of like who
John:you are generally in life.
Neal Veglio:You know I'd love to give you the marketing answer,
Neal Veglio:which is yes, I've sat and I've established my customer avatar.
Neal Veglio:My customer avatar, love someone who's brash and just gives their opinions.
Neal Veglio:I, I'll be completely honest with you, it's just what I've always done.
Neal Veglio:I, I a background in the radio broadcasting industry, and to say that I
Neal Veglio:had a bit of a reputation for being a bit of a maverick is a massive understatement.
Neal Veglio:I used to have there was a running joke with my radio.
Neal Veglio:Where they would say they were having their weekly meeting with the broadcasting
Neal Veglio:regulator to try and smooth over things after they'd heard my show.
Neal Veglio:So, you know, I've always been, I mean, I, I got in trouble in 1998 because
Neal Veglio:I called the local BBC radio station, and I was making jokes about the
Neal Veglio:fact that half of their audience were probably on the deathbed and could we
Neal Veglio:borrow some sugar, which didn't go down well with the local managing editor.
Neal Veglio:And my boss, my managing director, bless him, Jerry, at the time I
Neal Veglio:was off to Ibiza for two weeks.
Neal Veglio:I didn't care.
Neal Veglio:I was on.
Neal Veglio:But my , my managing direct had to have a meeting with the local BBC
Neal Veglio:managing editor to get them not to go to what was then the radio
Neal Veglio:authority and make a formal complaint.
Neal Veglio:And, you know, thank God for him.
Neal Veglio:He was a great negotiator, a real diplomat, and he smoothed all that over.
Neal Veglio:But yeah, I was a naughty boy and I think what I realized very early on
Neal Veglio:in my career and have continued to realize is, Indifference doesn't win.
Neal Veglio:Okay.
Neal Veglio:You know, you can be really, really nice and really safe and that might work.
Neal Veglio:Or you can be really in your face honest and tell people what they
Neal Veglio:don't necessarily want to hear.
Neal Veglio:But is the truth, and you can win in that regard as well.
Neal Veglio:But what you won't win is by doing something in the middle
Neal Veglio:where you're trying to be nice, but also get the point across.
Neal Veglio:And what I've always thought and understood rightly or wrongly, is
Neal Veglio:that I would rather die on my sword for something I believe in that might
Neal Veglio:resonate with 10% of my potential audience than just be bland cake, you know,
Neal Veglio:like a vanilla sponge with no icing.
Neal Veglio:For 99% of my potential audience, and I think it obviously works because I do
Neal Veglio:get a lot of feedback from people saying, in this world of the podcast influencer,
Neal Veglio:ugh, where you've got thousands of people essentially saying exactly the same
Neal Veglio:thing, day in, day out on social media.
Neal Veglio:It's the same old tricks.
Neal Veglio:Consistency is key.
Neal Veglio:Release three episodes on launch day.
Neal Veglio:Release your episodes on a Thursday.
Neal Veglio:Make sure that you do feed drops.
Neal Veglio:Just all this middle of the road advice that is one size fits all,
Neal Veglio:and we all know, you'll know John.
Neal Veglio:One size does not fit all in podcasting.
Neal Veglio:It's a very specific niche, medium, and you need to be really hot on the
Neal Veglio:kind of individuals that you are.
Neal Veglio:You are approaching with your content and so, I've found the feedback has
Neal Veglio:been that it's been well received and people like the honesty.
Neal Veglio:It's not intentional anymore than I'm just being me, but I realize that,
Neal Veglio:when I go online and I try and be, middle of the road and safe and try
Neal Veglio:and be professional and treat LinkedIn like this is a professional network.
Neal Veglio:It doesn't resonate as well anyway, so I'm quite happy with the way
Neal Veglio:that things are, the things are going intentional or otherwise.
John Ball:I think we, we always need people to stir the pot.
John Ball:And I think I first became aware of you through, I'm gonna forget the guy's
John Ball:last name, but a guy called Tanner.
John Ball:Who was on Twitter, Tanner
Neal Veglio:Campbell Campbell, the American Me
Neal Veglio:Big word.
Neal Veglio:Yeah.
John Ball:Who he sadly has left Twitter, and and I feel like Twitter
John Ball:is the worst for it, but but yeah, I, you and he did some conversations
John Ball:together and even, I think even a little project together at one point.
John Ball:Yeah.
John Ball:It's that,
Neal Veglio:He stole it from me.
Neal Veglio:But, you know, we, we won't go into detail on that.
Neal Veglio:It's fine.
Neal Veglio:A Whole drama.
John Ball:But one of the things I would like is like, because you do know, as we
John Ball:were saying, the uk you know your onions, you know what you're talking about.
John Ball:And and so we need people who do, because I think.
John Ball:I've worked in the personal development for industry for a long time and you
John Ball:know, I see a lot of parallels between what's going on in podcast coaching and
John Ball:what's been going on in coaching and personal development forever of like,
John Ball:there's loads of people who are just talking tons and tons of bs but are
John Ball:doing, doing some good marketing and getting business and money through it.
John Ball:And yet there's probably a much narrower band of people who are teaching quality
John Ball:content and information who really know what they're talking about.
John Ball:But people at large generally aren't able to distinguish between those two things.
John Ball:And so it, it is one of those things always have an issue with, they're
John Ball:like, how do we help people who are telling good stuff, showing good stuff,
John Ball:good content, good information, get their stuff out there more become,
John Ball:I guess, louder voices or more
John Ball:noticed voices in the world than the people who are just talking
John Ball:BS all the time, or sharing knowledge that isn't even theirs.
Neal Veglio:I think it's a really, a really good point, and I think it's really
Neal Veglio:important that people understand this.
Neal Veglio:And I think the, the quickest, I mean, I obviously, I overcome this with my own
Neal Veglio:objections that I get in my own marketing.
Neal Veglio:It's one of those things that I address and it's taken me
Neal Veglio:a long time to work this out.
Neal Veglio:You can build a business around BS quite easily because we have something called
Neal Veglio:the internet now, which makes things a lot easier to do that, you can, especially
Neal Veglio:with the rise of the chat G PT that everyone's going on about now, you can
Neal Veglio:essentially find out whatever you want.
Neal Veglio:It's gonna be within maybe a 90 percentile kind of difference between
Neal Veglio:truth and what's, what it's telling you, but you can use common sense
Neal Veglio:and figure out what it's telling you.
Neal Veglio:That's true and accurate.
Neal Veglio:And I think that's what a lot of people are doing now, is they're actually
Neal Veglio:they're, they're getting that next bridge.
Neal Veglio:It used to be you'd go to YouTube and watch YouTube videos.
Neal Veglio:You'd read a blog post, oh, suddenly I'm a podcast expert because I've
Neal Veglio:read some wisdom for an hour of a week, and you know that now is
Neal Veglio:in my head and I can relay this, regurgitate this garbage, which cuz it.
Neal Veglio:Pre predominantly it's garbage.
Neal Veglio:It's one person's opinion on YouTube of how they think you do things.
Neal Veglio:It's like these podcast gurus that have one show and then they start doing a
Neal Veglio:blueprint and they sell that for $3,000, and you know that's quite a common thing.
Neal Veglio:I mean, it's certainly during lockdown.
Neal Veglio:That's how people were pivoting towards doing that.
Neal Veglio:I think the trick here is you have to understand that a lot of
Neal Veglio:people can find out what sounds.
Neal Veglio:Quite easily and monetize that.
Neal Veglio:What you need to look out for in terms of whether or not you put your
Neal Veglio:trust in these people and you invest your, you know, your actual brand
Neal Veglio:into following these guidelines is.
Neal Veglio:Can they give you actual case studies?
Neal Veglio:Can they show you what they've done, how they've helped other people?
Neal Veglio:Do they have proof of their concepts?
Neal Veglio:Because really big giveaway is if you've got an online course and there's
Neal Veglio:no support email, no way of following up with the person that's doing the
Neal Veglio:course, you can bet your bottom dollars
Neal Veglio:it's cuz they don't have a clue what they're talking
Neal Veglio:about and they've regurgitate.
Neal Veglio:They're just good at marketing.
Neal Veglio:They've regurgitated content.
Neal Veglio:Put videos up behind a Kajabi.
Neal Veglio:How about it?
Neal Veglio:There you go.
Neal Veglio:Pay me $99 and never need to speak to you ever again, and they don't care about you.
Neal Veglio:That's the whole point.
Neal Veglio:That is the transaction.
Neal Veglio:You've paid them a little bit of money, not enough as far as
Neal Veglio:they're concerned to treat you with respect of having the follow up.
Neal Veglio:If you are working with someone that's decent and knows what they're talking
Neal Veglio:about, they will be able to provide you at least one case study where they can show
Neal Veglio:you how they've helped a client or a, an organization that they've worked with.
Neal Veglio:And I would say it's probably 1% of all podcasts, marketing gurus out
Neal Veglio:there that can actually do that.
Neal Veglio:So that would be the first place that I would advise anybody watching
Neal Veglio:or listening to this to, to go and, investigate, do your due diligence.
Neal Veglio:Because it's more important now in the age of the internet
Neal Veglio:than it ever has been before.
Neal Veglio:Yeah.
John Ball:And.
John Ball:I think this is a particularly important part and I certainly want
John Ball:to get into some of the, like where podcasting is at right now and sort
John Ball:of state of podcasting with you.
John Ball:before we do that, think really to carry on with where, where we're at.
John Ball:I know that one of the things you talk about a lot is the fake gurus.
John Ball:The phony people out there.
John Ball:And don't, I'm not gonna ask you to name them, I think.
John Ball:No, we probably know a few of the same people.
Neal Veglio:Oh, go on.
Neal Veglio:Ask me.
Neal Veglio:Go on . I could do with a court case.
Neal Veglio:. John Ball: It would maybe be it.
Neal Veglio:Maybe be, un.
Neal Veglio:This is one of the things I was like maybe a little bit unfair to, to do that.
Neal Veglio:And certainly I don't
Neal Veglio:create material that I can't actually publish . But but in terms of doing that
Neal Veglio:you speak very strongly about it and you just said there exact Exactly why,
Neal Veglio:what do you feel are the worst bits of advice that are going around that people
Neal Veglio:are just blindly following and are being regurgitated again and again and again?
Neal Veglio:I know you've already alluded to a few things, but what do you
Neal Veglio:think are the sort of the most.
Neal Veglio:Bad . The worst bad advice out there.
Neal Veglio:I'll give you the current number one.
Neal Veglio:It's been at the top of the charts for last three weeks, and I think it's gonna
Neal Veglio:stay there for quite a while this year.
Neal Veglio:Get your podcast on YouTube.
Neal Veglio:Oh my.
Neal Veglio:God.
Neal Veglio:I mean, it's almost like podcast gurus.
Neal Veglio:Certainly the new ones have only just discovered that video
Neal Veglio:is an element of podcasting.
Neal Veglio:It's let's just, let's just put this right to bed right now.
Neal Veglio:Video podcasting is nothing new.
Neal Veglio:Okay?
Neal Veglio:It's being marketed as something new because
Neal Veglio:youTube have suddenly shown up on the scene and they've been bubbling
Neal Veglio:away in the background and doing all the video stuff for a long time.
Neal Veglio:And Apple Podcasts have been allowing people to put video podcasts
Neal Veglio:up on their platform for, well, since the early two thousands.
Neal Veglio:Let's face it.
Neal Veglio:Since the beginning of podcasting, you've always been able to put your video up
Neal Veglio:there and a lot of ki, a lot of shows.
Neal Veglio:Did ¡ Leo LaPorte?
Neal Veglio:One of them had a video podcast.
Neal Veglio:You know, it used to be the case that you'd have to download the
Neal Veglio:thing overnight because back then the broadband speed just weren't there.
Neal Veglio:And videos obviously a lot more bandwidth than audio.
Neal Veglio:You know, nowadays you put your, your Apple podcasts on, oh, the podcast
Neal Veglio:is there, bang play straight away.
Neal Veglio:Almost, you know, the, the recent Spotify show on Netflix, the
Neal Veglio:playlist, it shows you in a dramatic way how Daniel Eck sat down his,
Neal Veglio:sat his team down and went, right.
Neal Veglio:I want this to.
Neal Veglio:Instantaneous when you hit the play button.
Neal Veglio:I don't want this like the Pirate Bay where you gotta download the Torrent
Neal Veglio:for two hours, be, to be able to hear the latest Depeche Mode album.
Neal Veglio:I want this instantaneous.
Neal Veglio:And they got the technology there to within a fraction of a second.
Neal Veglio:Now, it was the opposite of that with the early advent of video podcasting.
Neal Veglio:You'd had to download it overnight, and then in the morning you had to
Neal Veglio:hope it had downloaded and then you could watch it, but it would take
Neal Veglio:another 10 seconds for it to start playing because of the buffering.
Neal Veglio:We're not there now because we got.
Neal Veglio:A YouTube offers this instantaneous streaming that doesn't require
Neal Veglio:any initial downloading.
Neal Veglio:It might do if you're in a, you know, in a dodgy area with no signal point
Neal Veglio:is, podcast gurus seem to have it in their head now that that's going to be
Neal Veglio:the be all and end all of of podcasting.
Neal Veglio:It's not.
Neal Veglio:We've already had video podcasting.
Neal Veglio:I'll tell you who will do.
Neal Veglio:With a video podcast will be a YouTuber.
Neal Veglio:They're already doing it.
Neal Veglio:To think that you and your, whether it's a B2B podcast or a
Neal Veglio:hobby podcast, it doesn't matter.
Neal Veglio:To think that you suddenly recording your content to camera is going to
Neal Veglio:massively grow your potential audience
Neal Veglio:just because these people that, hello, they're audio in modality and they like
Neal Veglio:listening to podcasts because they're audio and their suit, their modality
Neal Veglio:to think they're suddenly gonna want your content in video format because
Neal Veglio:it's a video, is ludicrous to me.
Neal Veglio:Number one, they're two very different mediums.
Neal Veglio:We've already established that you've got auditory people
Neal Veglio:and you've got visual people.
Neal Veglio:The visual people are never gonna listen to an audio podcast.
Neal Veglio:The audio people are never gonna watch a video podcast or a YouTube video.
Neal Veglio:As you know, we more commonly call them.
Neal Veglio:So to me, the idea that people are encouraging brands and individuals
Neal Veglio:to spend even more of their precious time when it's already a tough
Neal Veglio:commodity to get hold of as it it is,
Neal Veglio:to spend even more of their time sitting there editing it to a point that someone's
Neal Veglio:gonna want to watch it and engage with it.
Neal Veglio:On top of that, it costs twice as much in not only your time, but your
Neal Veglio:resources, because video editing tools tend to be quite expensive if you're
Neal Veglio:gonna get the good ones as well.
Neal Veglio:And if you outsource it, oh wow.
Neal Veglio:Again, three times more than it would cost you to hire an audio editor.
Neal Veglio:And the audiences are gonna be about a.
Neal Veglio:I dunno about you, John, whether or not you've seen many of these video
Neal Veglio:podcasts, but you look at the numbers, the views, and they're not the same as
Neal Veglio:the view, as the listens that you get in your podcast, even in your podcast
Neal Veglio:app stats, which are not as accurate as
Neal Veglio:the dashboards in Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Neal Veglio:So I would say to you that this is one that I think is very agenda driven.
Neal Veglio:I think this is, YouTube has done a really great PR machine exercise here of we
Neal Veglio:need to get everyone talking about how YouTube is the place to have your podcast.
Neal Veglio:We're gonna ignore the fact that we don't have podcasts.
Neal Veglio:Anyway, there's all this talk about RSS feeds eventually
Neal Veglio:becoming native in YouTube.
Neal Veglio:Again, another really interesting point here.
Neal Veglio:It's not YouTube, it's YouTube music.
Neal Veglio:It's a complete, I noticed that different.
Neal Veglio:Absolutely.
Neal Veglio:So not only are they encouraging you, these podcast gurus get your, your
Neal Veglio:podcast on YouTube, you're not actually getting your podcast on YouTube, you're
Neal Veglio:getting your podcast on a sister app.
Neal Veglio:It's like saying, it's like saying that Google buys out TikTok
Neal Veglio:and you can get your podcast on the number one page of Google.
Neal Veglio:No, it's actually on TikTok, which is a very different algorithm.
Neal Veglio:So I think you've gotta be very careful about following this stock
Neal Veglio:advice that I, you know, I used to be a journalist as well, so I know
Neal Veglio:the press releases that go out.
Neal Veglio:And the kind of messaging that YouTube will have been using to these influencers
Neal Veglio:that they will have targeted, that have got lots of followers, probably a blue
Neal Veglio:verified tick on their Twitter account.
Neal Veglio:Talk a lot about podcasting.
Neal Veglio:Know they've got a lot of sway, and said to them, If you look
Neal Veglio:after us, we'll look after you
Neal Veglio:You know what I mean?
Neal Veglio:We might make your podcast outta this eye in YouTube because you are
Neal Veglio:advocating for YouTube, and this is quite common in the space, unfortunately.
John Ball:Do, do you think that YouTube then particularly have muddied the
John Ball:waters about what is or isn't a podcast?
Neal Veglio:Oh, 100%.
Neal Veglio:I mean, that's obvious.
Neal Veglio:You know, YouTube.
Neal Veglio:So I come from the old school of podcasting where if it doesn't have an
Neal Veglio:r s s feed, then it's not a podcast.
Neal Veglio:I'm relaxing on that because at the end of the day, content is content anyway,
Neal Veglio:and whether you want to listen to a podcast or watch a YouTube video or
Neal Veglio:read a blog post, it doesn't matter.
Neal Veglio:If you're after the content, then it's content.
Neal Veglio:It's valid, but it's not a podcast if it doesn't have an RSS feed.
Neal Veglio:And so, yeah, it, it's, it's really interesting.
Neal Veglio:Obviously.
Neal Veglio:What's the biggest demographic on YouTube?
Neal Veglio:It's the millennials, gen Z.
Neal Veglio:They're the ones that are watching this stuff, and they're the ones that
Neal Veglio:are easy to convince with these new narratives that, oh, you know, a podcast
Neal Veglio:doesn't have to have an RSS feed.
Neal Veglio:It could be anything.
Neal Veglio:And you mentioned them yourself tanner.
Neal Veglio:Tanner Campbell is one of these people who is advocating for us old farts, dropping
Neal Veglio:that whole r s s feed or not, or die you know, Argument, but the point remains.
Neal Veglio:This is the, this is exactly the kind of people that they're really trying to
Neal Veglio:brainwash into assuming and accepting that it doesn't have to be a podcast
Neal Veglio:in order for it to be a podcast.
Neal Veglio:It can be a LinkedIn Live, it could be a YouTube video, it could be a YouTube live.
Neal Veglio:It could be a webinar for Cry.
Neal Veglio:I've seen webinars being presented as podcast episodes.
Neal Veglio:Are you joking?
Neal Veglio:They're webinars.
Neal Veglio:They're not meant to be there for you to, download in your
Neal Veglio:car and listen on Apple podcast.
Neal Veglio:These are things that you invite people to because you're trying to upsell them.
Neal Veglio:That's the whole point of a webinar.
Neal Veglio:And anybody who says they're an educational tool,
Neal Veglio:they're joke, they're lying.
Neal Veglio:So, you know, for me it, it's about understanding the, just because you
Neal Veglio:call a fork, a spade it doesn't make.
John Ball:I, I think one of the problems that people who are especially looking to
John Ball:do podcasting to grow their business end up being challenged with is this ideal.
John Ball:I think it's out there really, that you're supposed to be doing all of that, all of
John Ball:that, and then some cause all of that, and then all your social media promotions
John Ball:and everything else on top of that.
John Ball:And then like, you're a media machine now.
John Ball:And and I certainly felt that in my podcasting journey I can
John Ball:remember doing videos, spending hours, editing YouTube videos.
John Ball:I honestly hate editing videos.
John Ball:And and it was such a relief to me when someone says, you don't actually
John Ball:need to put this stuff out on video.
John Ball:No, you're right.
John Ball:I don't, why am I doing this for?
John Ball:I'm just doing it because I thought you were supposed to do it.
John Ball:And so I just switched around.
John Ball:I'm just gonna focus on audio and and it's life has been a lot easier,
John Ball:a lot gentler since I did that.
John Ball:But also, somebody told me, oh, you need to be doing LinkedIn lives
John Ball:every day or live video every day.
Neal Veglio:The shoulds, the you shoulds the you should I,
John Ball:I did it for, I can't even think, I think it was up to maybe
John Ball:six months are you're gonna have such a big audience to like barely
John Ball:move the needle . I was like, okay.
John Ball:That was a heck of a lot of work for very little results.
John Ball:And I think that's, Always the danger with this, like podcasting in general
John Ball:is a slow burn anyway for most people.
John Ball:It's not a overnight success kind of thing for anybody really.
John Ball:So, I mean, there may be exceptions to that, but that, that said,
John Ball:there are things that are gonna slow that journey down even more.
John Ball:I, if you're trying to do too much and too much of the wrong things.
John Ball:So for those who are really looking to have some success who want to
John Ball:do the audience growth bit and they recognize that it's not gonna happen
John Ball:in a week, what are the things that you would say, you should definitely
John Ball:be focusing on this rather than that.
Neal Veglio:It's interesting that you sort of touched on the whole Jack
Neal Veglio:of all trades, master of none thing with the, you know, being everywhere.
Neal Veglio:You know, being everywhere is, is a Gary Vaynerchuck thing and he's not
Neal Veglio:wrong, but he is wrong at the same time.
Neal Veglio:And what, what?
Neal Veglio:I'm gonna, I'm not here to say that I know more than Gary Vaynerchuck
Neal Veglio:about marketing and business.
Neal Veglio:I absolutely don't, you know, I know what my space is.
Neal Veglio:My space is podcasting.
Neal Veglio:That's it.
Neal Veglio:I've done this for 20 odd years now.
Neal Veglio:I kind of think I know a thing or two about how it works.
Neal Veglio:Gary Vaynerchuck's been in podcasting seven minutes.
Neal Veglio:You know, comparatively, so he knows what works for him.
Neal Veglio:He knows about, you know, these small, digestible chunks going on
Neal Veglio:every single social media platform.
Neal Veglio:The problem is, he is a jack of all trades and a master of none,
Neal Veglio:because all he's doing is selling the brand of Gary Vaynerchuck.
Neal Veglio:Now, if you asked me what does Gary Vaynerchuck do, I might be
Neal Veglio:able to say, oh, he does wine.
Neal Veglio:I think he does, like a business guru advice.
Neal Veglio:Other than that, I don't know specifically how does Gary
Neal Veglio:Vaynerchuck make most of his money?
Neal Veglio:I couldn't tell you.
Neal Veglio:As far as I'm concerned, he's this bloke that turns up on YouTube now and
Neal Veglio:again, someone will share his LinkedIn post and he's talking absolute garbage.
Neal Veglio:He's just being angry and aggressive and getting your attention.
Neal Veglio:That's literally what Gary Vaynerchuck does.
Neal Veglio:But in terms of business, which is what I imagine a chunk of people
Neal Veglio:watching, listening, engaging with this content in some way will be trying
Neal Veglio:to do, is to get something back from their time invested in creating this.
Neal Veglio:Right.
Neal Veglio:Well, you're not gonna do that by having an Instagram account posting
Neal Veglio:20 videos a day, a LinkedIn account posting content you, because people
Neal Veglio:are just gonna get sick of you.
Neal Veglio:Yeah, that's the truth.
Neal Veglio:They are going, Gary Vaynerchuck is famous.
Neal Veglio:He doesn't care.
Neal Veglio:He's got a team of staff that are literally paid to put the button, push
Neal Veglio:the button every half an hour so something goes out because he's team Vaynerchuck.
Neal Veglio:So the people.
Neal Veglio:He's done the work, he's built the relationship with them.
Neal Veglio:They will accept him being in their timeline because they've subscribed
Neal Veglio:to it, they've asked for it.
Neal Veglio:You, they haven't.
Neal Veglio:You're still building that relationship, which is why I said earlier, you
Neal Veglio:know, one size does not fit all.
Neal Veglio:You are building a relationship with these people, these relative strangers
Neal Veglio:who know nothing about you yet, you want them to buy something from you
Neal Veglio:or invest in your community or do something that fills your cup and
Neal Veglio:makes you feel like it's worthwhile sitting down in one, in front of one
Neal Veglio:of these things or one of these things, and communicating with your audience,
Neal Veglio:you're only gonna do that by reaching them on their level in their terms.
Neal Veglio:And that doesn't mean being on every single channel posting,
Neal Veglio:just spraying content at them.
Neal Veglio:You need to be much more deliberate.
Neal Veglio:Now, to answer your question directly, it's really simple.
Neal Veglio:I'll give you in very, very simple terms, you need to treat this like a business.
Neal Veglio:If you want to grow your podcast, whether it be a hobby podcast, a
Neal Veglio:business podcast, it doesn't matter.
Neal Veglio:And I don't wanna hear the argument of, well, I'm not making any money
Neal Veglio:from it, so I don't wanna invest in it.
Neal Veglio:Then don't do it because this is a thankless business.
Neal Veglio:It really is.
Neal Veglio:It takes everything from you and gives you nothing back in the short term.
Neal Veglio:But if you are willing to do the reps, the podcasting six
Neal Veglio:pack doesn't come overnight.
Neal Veglio:It comes after three years of doing this, probably longer.
Neal Veglio:Okay.
Neal Veglio:There is a way of fast tracking and it's very simple.
Neal Veglio:Like any business, what does a business do when it wants customers, it buys them.
Neal Veglio:Okay.
Neal Veglio:It buys its customers to start with until the reputation's there, until
Neal Veglio:the growth is naturally occurring, until the trajectory starts doing that.
Neal Veglio:When a business is starting out, it has to buy its customers, whether it's through
Neal Veglio:marketing, through ads, through freebie content, through platforms, through
Neal Veglio:doing talking events, whatever it is.
Neal Veglio:All those things that we do in podcasting are part of that, but if you're only
Neal Veglio:doing the freebie, But you want an overnight audience, it's not gonna happen.
Neal Veglio:You know, like a business will do, it will spend 5,000 pounds
Neal Veglio:on Facebook ads for a month.
Neal Veglio:It will go and do the Google Ads campaign, and it invests its time and
Neal Veglio:its knowledge into making sure that content that it's using on Google Ads
Neal Veglio:resonates with this ideal customer.
Neal Veglio:And that's what you have to do.
Neal Veglio:It's no good just churning out content, hoping for the best, and going, oh
Neal Veglio:my God, I've only got 30 downloads.
Neal Veglio:Again, this.
Neal Veglio:It doesn't work like that.
Neal Veglio:If you want the 3000 downloads a week, you best be investing the
Neal Veglio:3000 downloads a week of time, money and driven content that targets
Neal Veglio:specifically to your ideal audience.
John Ball:Yeah.
John Ball:So if you want a business from this treat it like a business.
John Ball:Yeah.
John Ball:And, and if Gary Vaynerchuck does want to come on the show
John Ball:and explain what he does, To us.
John Ball:He's very welcome.
John Ball:Reach out Gary.
John Ball:We'd love to know what it is you actually do.
John Ball:I quite like Gary, myself.
John Ball:I like his I enjoy some of his appearances on other podcasts and
John Ball:stuff, but but yeah, when you were saying like, oh, what's he do?
John Ball:Oh yeah.
John Ball:I was like, yeah, something to do with wine.
John Ball:And that's about all
Neal Veglio:I have.
Neal Veglio:. I know it more.
Neal Veglio:Can I have a freebie bottle if you're coming on Gary?
John Ball:I'm sure, I'm sure he's dying to come on Podfluence and have
John Ball:a chat with me, but but there we go.
John Ball:In, interesting I think one of the things I, I want to get to you.
John Ball:Like you, you had the, you have a favorite podcast at the moment, or at least a
John Ball:favorite podcast to to gripe about, I should say, , which is one that has been
John Ball:very much pushed by Apple Podcasts but isn't maybe as, as you said in some of
John Ball:your articles that I've been noticing online recently, a and on your show as
John Ball:well, that isn't maybe doing as well as it looks like it's doing in terms
John Ball:of the downloads and audience followed.
John Ball:You wanna tell us a little bit about that?
Neal Veglio:I, I thought you were being genuine there, and I
Neal Veglio:thought you were gonna talk about one of my client's podcasts.
Neal Veglio:But you're, I think I know what you're talking about.
Neal Veglio:You're talking about that, that very, very famous business guru,
Neal Veglio:that nine year old fetus that has been on our TV now and rammed down
Neal Veglio:our throats, Steven Bartlett Mr.
Neal Veglio:Sycophantic.
Neal Veglio:Yeah, he.
Neal Veglio:I, I'm gonna be honest.
Neal Veglio:I'm gonna, I'm always transparent.
Neal Veglio:Okay.
Neal Veglio:So there might be certain biases here.
Neal Veglio:I don't like him.
Neal Veglio:I'm being completely transparent as a, as a person, I don't like him.
Neal Veglio:He rubs me up the wrong way.
Neal Veglio:But it doesn't change in any way, shape, or form the v validity of the fact that,
Neal Veglio:yeah, his podcast is a perfect example of one where, you, you don't need to
Neal Veglio:necessarily be successful for some of the platforms to join in with spreading
Neal Veglio:a perception that you are more successful than you, than you actually are.
Neal Veglio:I don't know why fully apple I genuinely don't fully understand why Apple Podcasts.
Neal Veglio:Pushes some of the podcasts that it does so much.
Neal Veglio:I could only imagine that certain relationships have been built.
Neal Veglio:They would never, ever admit to this publicly, I'm sure, but I, as someone
Neal Veglio:that's done a little bit myself in the past, I do know that you can have
Neal Veglio:certain conversations with certain people at some of these platforms and apps.
Neal Veglio:And you.
Neal Veglio:A little bit of insight that maybe you shouldn't be privy to.
Neal Veglio:The algorithm of Apple podcasts is shrouded in secrecy to the point that
Neal Veglio:they put it on their homepage now, so you can actually see it for yourself,
Neal Veglio:but it's still shrouded in secrecy.
Neal Veglio:They can never explain how it works.
Neal Veglio:, it's simple.
Neal Veglio:Here is the a by the way, if you're interested in the algorithm of Apple
Neal Veglio:podcast, how you can get your podcast surfaced into the chart, the fake charts
Neal Veglio:as I call them, it's really simple.
Neal Veglio:It's literally how many new followers you've had in 24 hours.
Neal Veglio:And that's based on as well a compound effect.
Neal Veglio:So for example, if your podcast already.
Neal Veglio:Say a hundred followers, then you need three times the the percentile of that.
Neal Veglio:So it's normally, it's about 10% of your current following.
Neal Veglio:Right?
Neal Veglio:And that gets compounded.
Neal Veglio:So if you've got five followers on your podcast, it's much easier to
Neal Veglio:grow and be, getting the charts.
Neal Veglio:Hence why pretty much every new podcast.
Neal Veglio:Does that excited braggy social media post about, oh, I'm delighted
Neal Veglio:to have, we got, my podcast into the top 30 for cake decorating.
Neal Veglio:Obviously it's not category that really exists, but I'm trying to be kind
Neal Veglio:here and not shame anybody personally.
Neal Veglio:And and the podcast gurus will do the same.
Neal Veglio:They'll see, oh, delighted we got our client into the charts.
Neal Veglio:Yeah.
Neal Veglio:The reason you got your client into the charts was because a
Neal Veglio:week ago they had no followers.
Neal Veglio:Now they've got 3, 4, 7, 10, 20 followers and however many followers they.
Neal Veglio:On launch day will have impact on the level of, the height that they go
Neal Veglio:into the charts on the week of launch.
Neal Veglio:But when you've got followers, that becomes harder.
Neal Veglio:So that's where they use something that I call scam marketing techniques.
Neal Veglio:I'm not gonna sugarcoat it here.
Neal Veglio:And Steven Bartlett is known for this, even at used to admit it publicly before
Neal Veglio:he became famous, that he was going on Fiverr and buying podcast listeners.
Neal Veglio:You know, he was buying the reviews, he was doing all that.
Neal Veglio:He was selling marketing.
Neal Veglio:That's what the social chain was, and he was using it as a shop window for, yeah,
Neal Veglio:I've managed to get this podcast into the charts, so he was bragging about it.
Neal Veglio:Now, obviously he hopes that you've forgotten about all that.
Neal Veglio:Well, you don't know about it, but this is literally what he's
Neal Veglio:doing and this is his strategy.
Neal Veglio:With Apple Podcasts algorithm, as long as you're getting new followers
Neal Veglio:and you're getting more new followers than you had before, you can surface
Neal Veglio:your podcast into the chance, and it's not based historically
Neal Veglio:so you could do this in spurts.
Neal Veglio:So you could say, January campaign, go aggressive in marketing, get
Neal Veglio:the podcast into the charts, then let it naturally drop out.
Neal Veglio:February new campaign, spend more money on marketing, on black hat,
Neal Veglio:on Bot follows, on bot listens, and get the podcast in the charts again.
Neal Veglio:As long as you are getting more followers all the time, then your
Neal Veglio:podcast will go in the charts.
Neal Veglio:I shudder to think how much he's spending in Black hat marketing to keep
Neal Veglio:that podcast constantly in the charts.
Neal Veglio:But that has been his main marketing vehicle.
Neal Veglio:You and I, we might do Facebook advertising, we might do you know,
Neal Veglio:LinkedIn premium accounts, that sort of thing, because we think a little
Neal Veglio:boost from the algorithm will help us.
Neal Veglio:This is his modus operandi.
Neal Veglio:He's literally using his position in podcasting, having the UK's number
Neal Veglio:one podcast to lift his brand.
Neal Veglio:But here's the truth.
Neal Veglio:His podcast gets 12,000 downloads per episode.
Neal Veglio:So he is not even in the top 2% of all podcasts globally.
Neal Veglio:Isn't that something?
Neal Veglio:And yet Apple Podcasts would suggest through their chart,
Neal Veglio:he is listened to by millions.
Neal Veglio:There are podcasts with about 20 times the size of the audience than
Neal Veglio:his that are languishing around 1722.
Neal Veglio:30 in the, in the main, and this is the main chart as well, not the category
Neal Veglio:chart, the main Apple Podcast's top 50.
Neal Veglio:And
John Ball:this is why they're pretty much bullshit.
John Ball:And I think this is pretty much what you, you and what you and
John Ball:Tanner had been playing around with in terms of gaming that system to
John Ball:show exactly why it was possible.
John Ball:Possible to do that.
John Ball:And you, I remember you both explaining pretty much how you gamed
John Ball:it as well for anyone who wanted to go and replicate those results
Neal Veglio:for themselves.
Neal Veglio:Anybody doing it?
Neal Veglio:Absolutely.
Neal Veglio:Yeah.
Neal Veglio:It's in those kinds of charts matters to you.
Neal Veglio:Facebook ads.
Neal Veglio:That's it.
Neal Veglio:It, we literally, so, so Tanner put the cash out because he wanted to go all in
Neal Veglio:on it, but, you know, we, we literally had a conversation where I'd shown him
Neal Veglio:behind the scenes.
Neal Veglio:I won't say which podcast it is cuz you know, I don't want people going into
Neal Veglio:it and going, you and reporting it.
Neal Veglio:But I set up a fake podcast and I literally did this.
Neal Veglio:I had nonsense content on it and I got it into the top 50 of the Apple
Neal Veglio:Podcast chart about three years ago, and I did it again a year ago.
Neal Veglio:So, despite the fact that Apple were publicly claiming that
Neal Veglio:they'd sorted all this out, I managed to do it again a year ago.
Neal Veglio:And I told him the secret formula and he went, yeah, let's do it.
Neal Veglio:Let's do the, and next thing I.
Neal Veglio:This is the kind of character Tanner was the next thing.
Neal Veglio:I'm looking in the morning.
Neal Veglio:He's already started to campaign.
Neal Veglio:I was like, oh, okay, cool.
Neal Veglio:Yeah.
Neal Veglio:But you know, the point is he had the spreadsheet and he proved, you know,
Neal Veglio:on his blog post that Yeah, he took this, I think he did on his philosophy
Neal Veglio:podcast that he's now gone all in on.
Neal Veglio:But essentially he managed to take practical Stoicism, and
Neal Veglio:that's the name of the podcast.
Neal Veglio:He managed to take it.
Neal Veglio:A handful of followers to thousands of followers in the space of a
Neal Veglio:month, and he showed how it had had an impact on his chart ranking.
John Ball:I kind of hope Tanner comes back to Twitter cuz I'm
John Ball:not going on fucking Mastadon.
Neal Veglio:What he was said.
Neal Veglio:Oh no.
Neal Veglio:He's a podcasting star now.
Neal Veglio:You can kiss goodbye to any any podcast guru from Tanner.
Neal Veglio:Now he's been the smart guy that's got out of this guru side and he's gone
Neal Veglio:into the actual moneymaking side of it.
John Ball:Oh, well, fair play to him.
John Ball:I enjoy his his content anyway.
John Ball:Thanks for tuning in.
John Ball:Well, here's a little taster of what you'll be getting in part
John Ball:two of my conversation with Neal.
Neal Veglio:Podcasting is literally appointment to listen to content.
Neal Veglio:Content, not presenters.
Neal Veglio:Okay.
Neal Veglio:Let me make this clear, because this is where the waters can get muddied.
Neal Veglio:I'm not suggesting that people are sitting there.
Neal Veglio:Making an appointment to listen to your podcast.
Neal Veglio:They are making an appointment to listen to the content that
Neal Veglio:your podcast might cover, right?
Neal Veglio:If you can get them over the line to become someone that makes an
Neal Veglio:appointment to listen to your podcast, that covers the content
Neal Veglio:that they want to hear, you've won.
Neal Veglio:But that's the point you have to understand here is that
Neal Veglio:it's not about the guests.
Neal Veglio:It's not about you necessarily at this point.
Neal Veglio:It's about your content and the content.
Neal Veglio:We have to remember this.
Neal Veglio:It's not about us, it's about the listener.
Neal Veglio:We are having to super serve the listener, get them the content
Neal Veglio:they want in these massive things they've got on the sides of their.
Neal Veglio:That they then feel they're getting ear candy from, to then feel that
Neal Veglio:they've had a valuable experience.
John Ball:I hope you've enjoyed the show so far, and if you have,
John Ball:do make sure you are subscribed.
John Ball:And if you want more Podfluence, do come and join me for the Podfluence weekly
John Ball:newsletter, which you can subscribe to through the link in the show notes.
John Ball:Do come and join us for part two of that conversation.
John Ball:And for now, wherever you're going, whatever you're doing,
John Ball:have an amazing rest of your day.
