How to establish goals for your podcast

Jan 22

No doubt you’ve probably heard the phrase “What got you here, won’t get you there”. It was made popular by executive coach and author, Marshall Goldsmith. Whenever I’m looking to expand something in my business or life, that phrase is a guiding light.

I apply this thinking to podcast strategy too. When we’re working with clients on a more in-depth level within our PodCoach service , or facilitating high level consultations I always ask them where they are currently, and where they want to get to.

The answer is often nuanced. A lot of the time they’re unsure really where they want to go, and they’re not tracking any results to see how far they’ve come. If you’re on this path too and you’re unsure what goals to set, or how to achieve them for your podcast, there are principles you can follow.

Before we get into the specifics, let's take a moment to understand why goal setting is crucial for the success of your podcast. Establishing clear goals allows you to align your efforts, measure progress, and stay motivated. It gives your podcast purpose and direction, enabling you to make strategic decisions and tailor your content to resonate with your target audience.

Where Are You Now and Where Do You Want to Get To?

When thinking about your podcast's goals, it's crucial to start by assessing where you are now and where you want to go. Instead of solely focusing on download numbers, I encourage you to consider broader objectives that align with your podcast's purpose.

Are you aiming to build thought leadership in your industry?

Do you want to sell courses or merchandise?

Perhaps, you aspire to become a better interviewer or a sought-after speaker.

A lot of the time podcasters don’t think about where they want to get to other than a big ol’ download figure. But what does that actually mean?

If you get the big numbers and you have this huge show that lots of people are listening to, what are you going to do with that audience? What kind of journey do you want to take them on, and ultimately how does that translate into some sort of financial result.

Track Your Progress

To determine where you stand in relation to your goals, it's essential to track relevant metrics. If you're unsure about your current status, consider our free podcast audit. Our team at Bamby Media can assess your show holistically, including the brand surrounding it. We'll help you identify areas for improvement and suggest specific actions to achieve your podcasting goals.

Suppose your objective is to establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry. In that case, you might want to track how many solo episodes you record compared to guest episodes. Hosting guest episodes albeit great for conversational and interview skills, won’t necessarily build your own thought leadership. If you’re reaching for the goal of building your own thought leadership, you should be tracking how many solo episodes you’re doing, and whether those topics are landing with your audience.

Small Measurable Actions for Long-Term Success

Podcasting is a long game, and achieving your big goals requires breaking them down into small measurable actions. By taking small steps consistently, you create a solid foundation for significant accomplishments.

Prioritise one or two specific tasks each month that align with your larger objectives. This focused approach prevents overwhelming yourself and ensures gradual progress. Atomic Habits by James Clear provides great tactics around this topic for you to use. His focus is on daily, small actions that over time lead to big changes. Setting small goals for your podcast is no different.

The Role of Investment:

When considering podcasting goals, it's essential to evaluate the investment required. Investment here refers to both time and money. Remember, even if you're not directly spending money, the time and effort you put into your podcast equate to a dollar value too. What I’ve found from the hundreds of podcasts that we have worked with here at Bamby Media is that larger investments tend to yield bigger rewards.

Successful businesses with substantial budgets have the advantage of allocating resources to experienced professionals who can guide them towards their goals. I appreciate that not everyone has big budgets to work with, so it’s important to establish what is achievable for the budget that you have to spend. Set realistic goals within your budget, but always have some big stretchy goals that are your north star too.

Establishing goals for your podcast is an important step towards its success, whatever that means to you. The important thing to remember here is that you’ll only be able to measure what you actually track. It’s difficult to establish what kind of impact your podcast is actually having, if you don’t setup the processes to track the small, repetitive actions that you’re doing. Always keep your "why" at the forefront of your mind, as it will guide your decision-making and fuel your progress.

Transcript:

[00:00:00] Brianna: Welcome back to my face. My name is Brianna and I'm the head honcho here at Bambi Media. What got you here won't get you there. Have you heard that before? So it's a book by Marshall Goldsmith, and I'm not talking about the book today. I'm just talking about this phrase more broadly. What got you here?
[00:00:21] Won't get you there. Now if we think about that in the context of your podcast, which is the whole point of this show Where are you now? I want you to really think about it. Where are you now? And where are you wanting to get to? When I say where do you want to get to? I don't want you to focus on I want X amount of downloads by this date I don't actually want you to think about the downloads at all.
[00:00:46] I want you to think about the other metrics and the other goals that you're trying to achieve through your podcast. What are the broader level Things that you feel like you want to have a real focus on. So whether that be building your thought leadership in your industry, having a course that sells on evergreen, selling out your memberships, if you have a membership model, having merch that.
[00:01:14] Improving your interview skills. Being asked to be a speaker on stages. Travelling the world and interviewing people. And so then when I think about that broader goal, and when you think about that, where are you now? And if your answer is, well, I don't really know. I mean, I guess I'm doing pretty well. How do you know that?
[00:01:33] Are you tracking any of the metrics? So when I think about that, we have this free podcast audit. We've been doing a lot of them lately where we get people just send in their shows, a link to their show, and then we look at their show as a whole. We're not just establishing whether the show is good, like, to listen to.
[00:01:51] We're looking at everything, the brand around the show. And then we give people a score. We don't ask you for a bunch of details. [00:02:00] We just look at the minutiae. We look at the. smaller details as to the things that you can be doing to achieve any goal that you have for your podcast. When you look at the bigger goal that you want to achieve and you're trying to establish what those smaller things are that you need to focus on, that's where we can come in and help you.
[00:02:18] Or you can look at those things yourself. So if you're trying to establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry, how many episodes are you doing that are solo? versus how many episodes are you doing that are guest episodes. If you're doing guest episodes, how is that building your thought leadership?
[00:02:34] Is it? It kind of builds the thought leadership in the guest, not in the host. That would be a small metric you would be tracking. Like, how many solo episodes am I doing, versus how many guest episodes am I doing. Now, if one of your overall big arching goals is, I want to be a better interviewer, Okay, that's a different situation.
[00:02:55] Then you want to have lots of guest episodes. You want to get lots of practice in, and not only having guest episodes, but have I got some sort of interview coach? Am I subscribed to a YouTube channel that I look at all the content for good interview skills every week? Am I following someone that's going to help me achieve that?
[00:03:13] And am I taking that action every week? This also comes down to that book, which will probably help you, Atomic Habits, by James Clear. He talks about making these small habits, where you can tick these things off fairly easily, that then bring in, over time, a much bigger Goal, like a much bigger achievement.
[00:03:33] Podcasting is no different. Whatever the larger goal is that you want to achieve, you need a small, measurable actions that you can take to achieve the big thing. So what got you here won't get you there. That means whatever you're doing now, if you're not achieving your result, you need to change things.
[00:03:52] This can be where we can help. We have a pod coach service where we hold your hand for three months or more. It's a minimum three month [00:04:00] commitment and we have a consult with you first up and go, okay, where do you want to go? And then we look at what you're doing and we go, All these things need to be actioned.
[00:04:09] And then we focus the action on one or two things every month to go, okay, building this up, building up, building up, building up. Because if you try and take too much action all at once on too many small things, then you're not going to do very well in any of them. It's better off to focus on one thing, get it right, get it established, then move on to the next thing.
[00:04:28] So you're building these blocks every month to achieve the bigger thing. And podcasting is a long game, unless you've got a giant, you know, audience already, your social media is quite large, and you've got maybe an established YouTube channel or something, you're not going to achieve these huge goals straight up.
[00:04:47] You're building a brand. in support of the business that you are operating within. If your podcast really is just to entertain and all you want to do is maybe have like a good subscriber base, you've got a newsletter that people pay for, you've got merchandise, that's all fine. That you can build that, that's awesome.
[00:05:05] It doesn't need to be supporting like a business business, it just needs to be supporting whatever it is that you've got that somehow turns into money. At the end of the day, most podcasters get into the business to build some sort of money. And that is not a bad thing. Once you've established the bigger goal, and then you've also established, okay, well, off of that bigger goal, I need these things to be done.
[00:05:28] I need these actions to be taken. I need these metrics to be tracked. Who's going to do that? So that will be you, someone on your team, if you're keeping it in house or outsourcing to an agency or someone like us to help you achieve. Not just the bigger goals, but the smaller things in the middle there.
[00:05:45] Once you've established who, then you can move on to why. And I really, really, really want you to think about this. Why do you want that big thing? Is it because you want money? Is it because you want to make [00:06:00] impact? But I want you to be honest with yourself. People say they want to make more impact all the time.
[00:06:04] I mean, what does that actually mean? What does impact mean? They want to change someone's life through the content that they're delivering? They want to build that over time. Like, why do you want this podcast to succeed? Once you've established the why, then you need to think about, okay, well, I know who I need, and I really know why I'm doing it now.
[00:06:25] What kind of investment am I able to make? This investment can be money, or it could be time, or it could be both. I would argue it is always both. Because even if the investment is just your time, your time is still worth money. Establishing what your investment can look like will help you also establish the time horizon that it may take to achieve not only the big thing, but the small things.
[00:06:53] I am of the opinion. That small investment equals small reward. I've been in this business now for nine years, and I've seen all levels. I have a bunch of case studies for all levels of investment. The ones that have a small investment, yes, they grow. Yes, they build, but it is slow because they can only invest a small amount.
[00:07:17] They can only achieve a small amount back. There's luck. There's virality. There's other things involved, and sometimes that means that, you know, things take off bigger than Ben Hur that you didn't expect. But most of the time, big businesses that have big budgets do big things because they can invest in the right people.
[00:07:38] that have already done the thing that has already been tried and tested most of the time or that are super creative and can put a lot of time and energy into. They offload, they allow those people to do their job. There's always collaboration involved. Everyone's focused on the metrics and the day to day and the smaller things and then the big picture stuff as well.
[00:07:59] Everyone's got [00:08:00] their role and they're able to achieve big things because it's not a small investment. And I had this conversation with a potential client a little while ago where they were achieving a certain level of success, but it felt a little stale. It felt like it wasn't really going anywhere.
[00:08:16] And then when I looked at what they were doing small scale and what the overall big scale was, they can't achieve what they want to get without making a bigger investment. What I'm trying to get you to think about is where is my investment point? Does that investment point make sense? In relation to what I'm trying to achieve.
[00:08:39] And if you've got a big mission, big goals, it can be hard, or at least take longer to achieve the big goals if you've only got a little pot to work with. So it doesn't need to be money, it may just be time. Your time, time from your team members to build up the things that you need to build and put focus and energy on those things.
[00:09:03] If you want BAMI Media to be involved with this and you feel like you're ready to invest, go to the contact page and we can start a conversation as to what that looks like. If you just want to have a one on one consult, like kicking off point, there is consult options there for you as well. Or if you want to join us in our pod coach service, where you join up with us for three months, where we.
[00:09:25] Have a console with you to begin with. We look at where you want to go and we look at what you need to do to achieve that. From there, we establish the metrics that need to be tracked. We look at the actions that need to be done, and we look at who's available to actually do those things within your team.
[00:09:42] From there, we give you an action point to focus on for the next couple of weeks to build that up and then build and build and build over that three month time frame or longer to look at what actually happens. So I want you to play a bigger game. I want you to think about this at a [00:10:00] higher level. We've entered a new year at the time of recording this.
[00:10:04] This is the perfect time for you to get smarter on what you're trying to achieve this year in your business. And in your life, and how does the podcast support those things? Who are you going to get to help you? Why are you doing this? And what is the investment that you're willing to make? They are the three key areas to focus on.
[00:10:25] Thanks for joining me and I'll chat with you next time.