We’re living in what I’ve started calling a trust recession.

With AI-generated content flooding our feeds, deepfakes going viral, and fake quotes attributed to public figures appearing daily, we’ve all become more skeptical of what we see online. Just last week, I found myself second-guessing a quote from an Indianapolis Colts player, wondering if it was real or AI-generated. That moment of hesitation? That’s the trust recession in action.

This shift changes everything for coaches and consultants trying to grow their businesses through content. While short-form content can grab attention, it’s long-form conversations, the kind you have on podcasts, that actually build the trust necessary to turn viewers into clients. When someone spends 20, 30, or 40 minutes listening to you unpack your expertise, they’re not just consuming content. They’re building a relationship with you.

The Challenge

But here’s the challenge: everyone and their brother has a podcast now. The platform is saturated, and it’s easy to think, “Why bother? I’m not going to be Joe Rogan.” That’s the wrong question. The right question is: can your podcast consistently attract your ideal clients and drive real business results?

The answer is yes if you build it on the right foundation. After years of helping coaches and consultants launch and grow their podcasts, we’ve identified four essential pillars that separate successful, client-generating podcasts from the ones that fade into obscurity. Master these four pillars, and you won’t need millions of listeners. You’ll just need the right people to discover your message, trust your expertise, and ultimately choose to work with you.

The Foundation: Why These Four Pillars Matter

Before we dive into the pillars themselves, understand this: a three-legged table doesn’t work. Remove even one of these pillars, and your podcast becomes unstable. You might get some traction, but you’ll always wonder why it’s not delivering the results you want.

These aren’t trendy tactics or growth hacks. These are the fundamental elements that make podcasts work—regardless of your niche, experience level, or audience size. Whether you’re launching your first episode or trying to revive a stalled show, these pillars will show you exactly where to focus your energy.

Pillar One: Purpose (The Promise You Make)

Your podcast needs a clear, specific purpose that can be articulated in one sentence. Not a vague mission statement, but a concrete promise about what listeners will get from tuning in.

Ask yourself: can your audience finish this sentence? “I listen to this show because __________.”

If they can’t, you have a variety show—and variety shows don’t build authority or generate clients. Our podcast exists to help coaches and consultants win with video content. That’s it. Every episode delivers on that promise in some way.

The mistake most podcasters make is thinking their purpose is obvious or that they’ve communicated it clearly enough. Here’s the truth: the moment you get sick of repeating your purpose is about the time your audience is just starting to catch it. You need to state your purpose at the beginning of every episode, work it into conversations naturally, and make it impossible for someone to listen without understanding what you’re about.

Your purpose doesn’t have to be serious. If you’re creating an entertainment podcast, own that. Just make sure entertainment is your stated goal. The key is alignment—everything you create should ladder back to that one promise.

Without a clear purpose, you’ll struggle with consistency, your messaging will feel scattered, and potential clients won’t understand how working with you would help them. With a clear purpose, every episode becomes another proof point that you can deliver on what you promise.

Pillar Two: Packaging (The Visual Hook That Gets Clicks)

An author recently spent $200,000 on the cover design for their new book. Why would someone invest that much in a cover? Because it’s the first impression. It’s what gets someone to pick up the book, read the back cover, and decide if it’s worth their time.

Your podcast packaging—thumbnails, titles, and descriptions—serves the exact same function. And if you’re not thinking about it strategically, you’re losing potential listeners before they ever hear your voice.

This is especially critical on YouTube, which has become one of the largest podcasting platforms in existence. When someone is scrolling through their homepage looking for something to watch, they’re making split-second decisions based on what catches their eye. Your thumbnail needs to stop the scroll. Your title needs to spark curiosity or promise value. Your description needs to reinforce that this episode is worth their time.

We all judge books by their covers, even though we say we don’t. We choose restaurants based on their Instagram feeds. We pick wine bottles based on label design. Content consumption works the same way. If billions of people have podcasts, there are billions of choices. If your message matters, make it easy to find and easy to resonate with.

Practical steps for better packaging: Before publishing any episode, ask yourself, “Would a stranger click on this?” Show your thumbnail and title to friends or colleagues who don’t know the episode content. If they’re not curious, redesign it. Use tools like Canva or hire a designer specifically for thumbnails. Study what’s working in your niche—not to copy, but to understand what visual patterns attract your ideal audience.

Your content might be incredible, but if your packaging doesn’t communicate that value at a glance, you’re making it unnecessarily hard for the right people to discover you.

Pillar Three: Positioning (The First 60 Seconds That Hook Listeners)

Your podcast analytics probably tell a familiar story: strong start, then a steady drop-off in listeners. That drop-off happens when your positioning fails to hook people in the critical first 60 seconds.

Most podcasters waste their opening on pleasantries, long introductions, or rambling into the topic. Instead, your first minute should follow a simple formula: pain plus promise.

Here’s how we might position this very episode: “Most podcasts fail—not because the content is bad, but because the strategy is broken. Today, I’m giving you the four pillars of podcasting that will make your podcast finally generate real business results.”

That’s it. We identified the pain (failing podcasts), established why it’s failing (broken strategy, not bad content), and promised a solution (four specific pillars). Now the listener knows exactly what they’re getting and why they should stick around.

The counterintuitive move that makes this pillar so powerful is this: give away the entire strategy upfront. Don’t make people wade through 20 minutes of setup to discover your framework. Tell them immediately: these are the four pillars—purpose, packaging, positioning, and pitch.

Why does this work? Because people aren’t buying your strategy. They’re buying your help in implementing that strategy. Strategies are everywhere, free and accessible. What they can’t get for free is your years of experience, your nuanced understanding, and your ability to help them apply it to their specific situation.

When you give away the strategy upfront, you also create perfect micro-content. That 60-second positioning becomes a standalone short-form video or reel that previews the full episode. You’ve just solved two content problems with one strategic choice.

Your positioning should make the listener think, “I could probably figure this out myself, but I’d rather have them walk me through it.” That’s the sweet spot.

Pillar Four: Pitch (The Clear Call-to-Action)

Your podcast isn’t just content—it’s a client-generation engine. But it only works if you actually invite people to work with you. This is where most coaches and consultants either get too timid or too confusing.

The pitch is simple: a clear, concise call-to-action that tells listeners exactly how to take the next step with you. Not five different options. Not a vague “find me online.” One clear path: “If you want help implementing this, go to [yourwebsite.com] and book a call.”

Think about it this way: you’ve just spent 30 minutes teaching strategy (the what) and walking through implementation (the how). Some listeners will take that information and run with it successfully. But many others are thinking, “This is exactly what I need, but I don’t have the time, energy, or expertise to do this myself. I wish someone would just do it for me.”

That’s your opportunity. You’re not tricking anyone. You’re not being pushy. You’re simply saying, “If you’d like help with this, here’s how we can work together.”

The key is timing and trust. Don’t lead with your pitch in the first two minutes. Build value first. Share your expertise. Demonstrate that you know what you’re talking about. Then, about halfway through or toward the end, interrupt the conversation: “Quick thing—if you’re listening to this and thinking you’d like help implementing these strategies, here’s how we can work together.”

Keep it simple. Make your links clean and easy to remember. Include them in your show notes, description, and any visual elements. The easier you make it, the more people will take action.

Remember: we’re all willing to pay to solve problems that matter to us. That’s not shameful—it’s smart. When you frame your pitch as an invitation rather than a sales moment, you’re simply offering to save them time and accelerate their results. Most people will say yes to that offer when they trust you—and you’ve just spent 30 minutes building that trust.

The Four Common Mistakes That Undermine These Pillars

Even when podcasters understand these pillars intellectually, they still make predictable mistakes:

Mistake 1: Assuming your purpose is obvious. It’s not. State it explicitly, repeatedly, until you’re sick of saying it. Then keep going.

Mistake 2: Using “good enough” packaging. In a world of endless choices, good enough isn’t good enough. Invest time, energy, or money into thumbnails and titles that genuinely stand out.

Mistake 3: Burying the value. Don’t make listeners work to understand why they should care. Position your value in the first 60 seconds, every single time.

Mistake 4: Being afraid to pitch. Your expertise has value. Your services solve real problems. Inviting people to work with you isn’t pushy—it’s helpful. Don’t hide your call-to-action or make it confusing.

Final Thoughts: Build the Foundation That Drives Real Results

You don’t need millions of listeners to have a successful podcast. You need the right listeners—the ones who resonate with your message, trust your expertise, and eventually become clients.

That happens when you build your podcast on these four pillars: a clear purpose that promises specific value, strategic packaging that gets people to click, strong positioning that hooks them in the first 60 seconds, and a direct pitch that invites them to work with you.

Master these pillars, and your podcast becomes more than content. It becomes a 24/7 sales team, working to attract, educate, and convert your ideal clients while you focus on coaching.

Ready to build a podcast that actually drives business results? Watch the full episode where we break down each pillar in detail, or head over to 1898creative.com to learn how we help coaches and consultants implement these strategies without the overwhelm.

Your voice matters. Your message deserves to be heard. Now you have the framework to make it happen.

#createyourart

Full Transcript

Darren: Well, hey, welcome back to another Coaching with Content podcast. Glad that you are here. And as always, we’ve got Dustin. Dustin, good to have you here. And I don’t know if you’ve noticed this recently, Dustin, but as I look around the landscape of kind of life and content and business and all of that kind of stuff, we seem to find ourselves in what I’ve kind of been coining recently and had a good response with—a trust recession.

In a trust recession, I think with the boom of AI and all the things that are happening, it’s really easy to kind of start to get a little bit skeptical of things. And I don’t know if you’ve been like this at all, but I didn’t notice this until a few weeks ago. I was scrolling on Instagram or something, right? And a quote graphic came up. I’m a huge Indianapolis Colts fan. I don’t know if you know this, but I’m a huge Indianapolis Colts fan. And a quote came up from either one of the owners or one of the players, right? And I’m reading the quote and I’m going, oh my gosh, I can’t believe that they really said this. And now all of a sudden, I’m really second-guessing. I’m looking at it, going, wait a minute, they didn’t say—I’m now questioning everything, right?

Or if you’ve scrolled through social media and there’s a video, even, and you’re going, it doesn’t look quite right. Did it—is that AI? I don’t know if that’s AI or not. I’m finding myself even questioning or looking at things a little more skeptically when it comes to the content that’s being put in front of me. Have you found yourself like that at all? Or is it just me?

Dustin: Yeah, no, for sure. On the quotes, luckily, some of the AI videos that are going out—there’s an app right now, I forget what it’s called, it’s Soho or something like that. But it’s an AI video app or whatever. And luckily, some of that stuff has the little watermark on it that says this was made with this app or whatever. Yeah. Especially in the sports world. Someone said something, someone’s leaving, someone’s getting hired. You’re just going, what? And then I just immediately look at the source and go, if I’ve never heard of you, then I don’t trust.

Darren: And that’s where it’s funny, man. Maybe I should have been more skeptical back in the day, but I never saw myself that way up until recently. With the boom of AI, with all the things that are going on and us being in the content game, it’s now I’ve started to kind of go, ooh, I don’t know. And so I’ve been talking to a lot of guys recently using that phrase, trust recession. We’re in a trust recession and they’re going, oh man, yes we are. I’ve never said it that way, but we really are in this trust recession.

And so I think for us here at 1898 and as the more content that we help businesses create and help coaches get their message out and build their brand, we’ve kind of taken this establishment of—we really need to see long-form video content be the play to build authority, to build your brand and to ultimately build your business.

Dustin: Build trust.

Darren: To build trust. Yes. And I think the reason that we’re seeing that shift is we’re seeing that shift because ultimately what we just explained about what we’re seeing and kind of—we’re kind of skeptical of the short form, quick hits.

Dustin: And I think all the bite size stuff. Yeah. I think we’re just tired. If I’m on it, it’s just overload, overload, overload.

Darren: And I think we’re seeing this shift into, okay, let’s have more real conversations. Let’s you and I, Dustin, sit down and have a dialogue about this kind of piece. And over the 20, 30, 40-minute conversation, people kind of settle in a little bit. They’re like, oh yeah, we’re able to tell more stories. We’re able to be more nuanced with what we do. And ultimately that builds trust, that builds authority, that builds a little bit of rapport with those viewing and watching this. Right? Wouldn’t you say that?

Dustin: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I think the more you can hear from somebody in any context, whether it’s in person or video or audio, but the more that you can hear them, the more that trust and rapport is built up. And so we’ve talked about it many times on this podcast, but that’s why consistency is such a big key in being able to build trust and authority with your audience.

Darren: Yeah. Yeah. And so with that being said, Dustin, I think a lot of the clients that we work with and even ourselves—you have a podcast, I have a podcast—the thing that we’re telling everybody to kind of lean into if they’re comfortable with it is starting a podcast. And I know the joke is literally everybody has a podcast. Everybody and their brother has a podcast. It’s a cool and hip thing to do. And often we might look at it and go, well, I’m not going to be Joe Rogan. I’m not going to be the top hitters in the podcast world. So why would I even do that? And I think it’s easy to kind of shut it down quickly because you go, I don’t want to just add to the noise.

But today I want to walk us through four pillars of podcasting—four pillars of podcasting. And yeah, it’s fun to say, Dustin. It is fun to say. And we’re going to walk through these four pillars and this really is to help you grow the podcast. These are things that need to be established in order for you to attract the right people. And when we say start a podcast and attract the right people, that doesn’t mean that it’s going to be millions and millions of people, right? You just need the right person to come across your conversation and to go, man, I really love this. I love what they’re about. I love their positioning and how they put their thoughts and ideas together. And now I want to engage with this person more and ultimately do business with this person over time.

And so today our goal is to walk through these four pillars of podcasting that you can look at—if you’ve either started or you’re restarting or you already have a podcast, Dustin, you might even be doing this today, even after a hundred plus episodes of your own podcast, looking at yours going, do I have these four pillars? Because this is what podcast growth is all about.

Dustin: Yep. Any thoughts on that before we dive into these pillars?

Darren: I was just thinking the imagery for me is every solid table, every solid chair has those four legs holding it up. And these are the ones that without one of these, it’ll be a bit wobbly. It’ll be a bit off. It’ll be unstable.

Dustin: Unstable. Yeah. Unstable is how I would say it.

Darren: Sure. I don’t know how to say repurposing. So yeah, I’m not good at words either. So let’s go.

Dustin: Yeah. No, I love that analogy of the table or the chair, right? A three legged table just doesn’t hit. And so I think when you get these four pillars put in place, you will start to see growth that you go, oh, oh yeah. Now this is working. This is worth my time. And this is stepping into what we need it to.

So let’s just talk through these four pillars of podcasting that we’ve put together. And the first pillar is going to be the purpose. This might be considered your why. And really what it comes down to with this purpose pillar is what are you promising to people that you are going to help them with?

And what we often see with podcasts—and I know I’ve fallen victim of this—if we’re a few episodes into this podcast, if you go back to the first few episodes, you might go, Darren, you’re not doing that. Guilty as charged. Okay. But ultimately the purpose or the promise that you’re offering to somebody, it’s one person, it’s one promise. And ultimately that’s going to be the purpose of your podcast, right? It’s going to be the driving force specific down to the nitty gritty. Because often what we find is we have this vague understanding of what the podcast is about.

Even the title of your podcast should lean to what it is that we’re about to step into. Right? We landed on Coaching with Content for this podcast because we believe that you can coach—you coaches and consultants out there—you can coach through your content. And that’s the reason that you spend time doing that. And so when you come across that title, you go, oh, oh, that makes sense. Okay. I can coach through my content or I’m a coach and I want to create more content. You’re going to lean towards that. It’s just speaking out to your ideal avatar, if you will. And we are going to talk about content. We’re going to talk to coaches, and we are going to help you win with video. That’s even in our tagline, right? And so that’s ultimately what we try to do.

And so for you and your podcast, what is your purpose? What is the thing that you are offering to people that if you come in to listen here, you’re going to have this outcome. You’re going to have this understanding. You’re going to have this ability. And so that’s really the first pillar that we need to step into.

So Dustin, as we talk about the purpose or the why or the promise of these podcasts, what can we help people understand with that? Does that hit you?

Dustin: Yeah. I think what you need to understand whenever you’re talking about why in whatever context it is, whether it be a podcast or a boardroom or a parenting situation, whenever you’re talking about why is you have to be consistent about restating that why constantly. So if we’re saying the first pillar is purpose, you really should be starting every episode with the purpose of the podcast, right? Hey, we’re here to help coaches and consultants win with video. Boom. That’s what we’re doing.

So my podcast is easy. I’m here to help creative agencies scale with their processes and systems. Boom. So it’s an easy—it should be one sentence. If it can’t fit on a napkin, it’s too much. Yeah. Right. But you have to constantly say it over and over. And what we always say about the why or the vision or the purpose is that the moment that you get sick of hearing yourself say it is just about the time that people are starting to catch it. That’s right. So if you’re not sick of hearing yourself say it yet, then you haven’t been saying it enough.

Darren: Yeah. Yeah. Man, I’m guilty of that. I know that so many times I go to say a phrase or the thing and I’m going, oh, I’ve said that a hundred times, you know, and so I talk myself out of it before I even get there. And ultimately what you’re saying is it takes us saying it a ton, even before somebody even starts to listen to it.

Dustin: To hear it.

Darren: Right. Two different things, right? I can hear something, but I might not be listening, right? We all know that maybe our significant other is telling us about something and we might hear them, but we’re not really listening. Right.

Dustin: I don’t do that. Darren doesn’t do that. I know people that do it for sure. I’ve seen a guy once. I’ve seen it happen.

Darren: I love this thought along the lines of listening, Dustin, is your audience should be able to say this about your podcast: I listen to this show because. Right? They should be able to say that. I listen to this show because they helped me win with video. Or in your example, Dustin, they listen to your podcast because you help bring clarity to the chaos of the creative life and the creative mind, right?

And so I love that little sentence. Can you say that, you listener today? Can you say that your audience is able to finish that sentence? I listened to this show because—because if not, you have more of just kind of a variety show or just, you know, you’re throwing stuff against the wall to see what sticks, right?

Dustin: Yeah. Yeah. Shout out to just my stump talk, my treat, my stump. Thanks for coming to my 32nd Ted Talk. Let’s go. There’s nothing wrong with the podcast purpose being strictly for entertainment. I know that’s not what we’re here—we’re talking about content—but I’m trying to think through the podcast that I listen to on a regular basis. And there’s a couple of them out there. I listen to this podcast because—there’s a couple of them out there. I listen to this podcast because it’s entertaining. There’s nothing wrong with being entertaining as long as that’s the defined purpose.

Darren: That’s the defined purpose is to entertain. Exactly. Exactly. You know, to your point, there are a lot of podcasts that I listened to for the entertainment value. One that I listened to literally says we’re here to entertain a nation. Yeah. And now you understand exactly what it is that they’re trying to do. Yeah. So if I’m entertained, I’m going, well, that’s what I’m here for. Yeah.

Dustin: 100%. 100%. But that’s a great idea. You go to IHOP, right? And you’re looking for tacos.

Darren: Yeah, doesn’t work. You’re like, you’re in the wrong spot. Yeah. And every time that they try to roll out those tacos, it just doesn’t work.

All right, go ahead. I’m getting us off. Go ahead.

Dustin: Oh yeah. That’s good. That’s good.

Darren: So, hey, if you listener today, if you’re going, man, I need some help with defining my purpose, my why, my promise, reach out to us. Head on over to Instagram. Both Dustin and I are there. Mine is Darren Andrew Cooper, D-A-R-R-E-N Andrew Cooper. All one word. Reach out. We’d love to help you. Dustin, you are Dustin Pead, P-E-A-D, right?

Dustin: Yes, sir.

Darren: Your name is so unique that you just get to use your first and last name and that’s it. It’s true. You’re cool like that, man. That’s awesome. So yes, if you need help with that, reach on out to us. Head on over to Instagram. We’d be glad to have those conversations with you.

With that said, let’s move to pillar number two. So we have our purpose, right? The purpose of our podcast. We have a strict format, whether that’s entertainment, whether that’s video, whether that’s business coaching, whether it’s knitting systems, clarity, all the stuff. Systems, underwater basket weaving, whatever it is.

All right, the second one is going to be the packaging. This might be like, really? We’re going to talk about the package of the podcast? But this is something I’ve really gotten into here recently, especially in the YouTube world. And I don’t know if you know this, Dustin—we’ve talked about it, so you probably know it—but YouTube has become one of the largest, if not the largest podcasting platform out there.

Dustin: And so audio?

Darren: Yes, great. Spotify, Apple Podcasts. Those are wonderful platforms and you should be on there. But ultimately YouTube is a huge juggernaut of podcasting. I’ve watched more podcasts sitting in my living room in the last two years than I have in my whole entire life. And that just speaks to the fact that that platform is huge.

And so when you talk about this type of platform, if you’re anything like me, you’re scrolling through YouTube, looking for something to watch, something to catch your eye. You’re looking at a few things. You’re looking at the title. You’re ultimately looking at the thumbnail, right? What catches your attention? What catches your eye to get you to stop and go, ooh, what is that? You look at the title and then you decide if that’s something that you’re interested in to click into. Right?

So this is what we’re talking about with the packaging. We’re talking about the thumbnail, the title, and then ultimately the description a little bit, right? But those things are going to make up this pillar, this packaging pillar. And if you get this right, if you learn to put this together in the right way, you’re going to be—literally you’ll be going, holy crap, why didn’t I do this sooner?

And I heard a story—I was listening or watching a podcast on my TV, I think it was this morning actually. And somebody was talking about an author, a recent author that spent upwards of like 200 grand, I think it was, on the cover of their new book that was coming out. 200 grand. That’s almost a house, right? That is some houses. Why would they spend so much money on the cover of their book? Well, ultimately that cover’s the thing that gets somebody to pick it up, to open it, to read the little description about it, and ultimately decide if that’s for them or not.

And if somebody that is spending all that time and effort into writing and crafting this narrative and this story spends that much on the cover of their book, shouldn’t we actually think about the thumbnails and the titles and the descriptions and the things that we put into our videos and our podcast episodes? I say, yeah, that’s a huge aspect of what we need to be doing.

And so with that, that pillar does—you know, Dustin, have you walked in and looked through YouTube and seen and gone, I’m not watching that or the other way of, yeah, that’s for me. What has that been like?

Dustin: Yeah. A couple of things I’ll say there. Number one, if your content is worth watching, then make it worth—make it easy to find. And that’s what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about packaging. You may not want to admit this, but most of us in today’s society, including myself, we buy books based on the cover. Yeah. 100%. I shop at the grocery store and I choose what I’m going to buy based on the what? Packaging. Packaging. Yep.

I choose where we’re going to go eat—hop on their Instagram and I look at their feed. Yep. That’s their packaging. Right. And so I think we need to understand that that’s the society we live in. And when it comes to full on deep relationships, that’s obviously different. But what we’re talking about here is consuming content. And there’s so many endless choices. If the world is filled with billions of people and everybody has a podcast, that’s billions of podcasts. Right. So there’s so many options.

So if you have a message for a certain purpose, like we talked about in the first pillar, then you need to make it easy to find and easy to resonate. And if you can make it easy to find, easy to resonate, that means you’ve got your packaging right. Yep. That’s what we’re talking about here in the second.

Darren: Yeah. Yeah. I was joking with you earlier when you said the grocery store—I was talking to a buddy this week about going and buying a bottle of wine on the shelf. And it was we don’t know what we’re doing. We have no idea. There’s so many things. There’s so many options. Price or these. There’s these little numbers that say 92 is—well, is that good? I don’t know. We have no idea what we’re doing. And so we were laughing about the fact that all of our choices are based on the label alone.

And that so speaks to exactly what you’re talking about here. You go to the grocery store. You’re going, well, that one looks cool. I like the design of that one better than this one. So I’m going to go with that. And ultimately we say, don’t judge a book by its cover, but ultimately that’s exactly what we do. And that’s how we get into whatever it is. And so I think that’s huge. And it’s easily overlooked. I know that I’ve fallen guilty of that. I’m just going, oh, it’s good enough. Oh, that title’s fine enough. I don’t dig a little bit deeper. I don’t try a little harder. I don’t examine it enough. I just kind of go ship it. Let’s be done.

And I think with this being such a strong pillar of the foundation of your podcast, we got to make it a priority. So even just stopping for a few minutes and going, you know, would a stranger click on this? Would this title speak to me directly? And if the answer is no, redesign it, try something different, you know, reach out to a designer or get something. There’s a ton of people designing thumbnails and different things of that nature. Bounce things off of your friends and family. What do you think about this? Does this catch your eye? All those things are going to ultimately help you make sure that this pillar is put in place. So any other thoughts Dustin on that before we go to pillar number three?

Dustin: Now I’m ready for pillar number three. And if you haven’t noticed already, we’re talking about the four pillars of podcasting and making it perfect. We’ve got a little alliteration going on here. So what’s our third P?

Darren: Ooh, I’m glad you asked. So we have the purpose, we have the packaging and now we have the positioning. I love it. I love when it all comes together like this, Dustin—a purposeful plan. Ooh, there it is. Man, it’s so good.

So the positioning. One thing that every episode or everything you should do when it comes to content. You hear people talk about the hook. You hear people talk about the first 60 seconds. You hear people talk about those elements that kind of draw people in and you might go, ah, it’s not worth it. Let’s just slap on, you know, a piece of the podcast from somewhere in the middle at the front. And let’s just go with that. And that’s fine. But ultimately, your positioning is going to be what keeps people.

What happens often in podcasting is if you look at your analytics, you’ll probably see it is that it’ll start off strong and then you’ll see people just dropping off, dropping off, dropping off, right? Your retention is not very good. And when that happens, one of the best things that you can look at is can I position this in a stronger way with that first 60 seconds?

Dustin: Position the episode.

Darren: Exactly, exactly. So usually how this can come together is you can say here’s the problem and here’s the solution or here’s the problem. Actually I have—I wrote it down here because I was going, that’s good. So for your hook or your first part of your positioning you can do here’s the pain—man there’s a P too Dustin I didn’t even think about that—there’s the pain.

Dustin: Everywhere, there’s everywhere. Just everywhere.

Darren: Oh, it’s so good. So here’s the pain and here’s the promise. So if you are still watching this episode, we probably started off with something like most podcasts fail, not because your content is bad, but because your strategy is broken. So that’s the pain, right? That’s the pain you’re feeling.

So the promise is today I’m giving you the four pillars of podcasting. Today I’m giving you the four pillars of podcasting that will make your podcast finally generate real business results. Boom. Pain, promise, dive into the episode, right? And so that’s an easy way of positioning your podcast because now when I’ve clicked on your episode, you’ve hooked me in, you’ve positioned yourself in a way of I need that. I need that help. I need you to walk me through that. And ultimately I’m going to stick around longer because you’ve told me upfront where we’re headed and how I’m going to get there. Yeah.

Dustin: And this might be something that messes up the beginning of your podcast. And if it’s not for this episode, maybe it’s for another episode, but something that I’ve seen too when I’m consuming podcast content—we talk about this positioning and we talk about the hook and we talk about the first 60 seconds. The idea here, if you’re wondering what’s kind of the rule I need to follow? We talked about the pain and the promise, right? The solution, right? But ultimately, just get to the point. Just get to the point.

Darren: Give away the pain. Another point. Yeah, get to the point. There’s another P. Give away the full strategy upfront. Now, I don’t know if we’ll do this in post-production. You will know by the time you’ve gotten to this point in the podcast, but really in the first, I would say minute or two of this podcast, we really need to just tell you, these are the four P’s. These are the four pillars and we’re going to break them down for you. Right? So say, hey, if you need to hear an explanation, you’ll stick around. Yeah.

Dustin: And if I heard, hey, the four pillars of every podcast—the purpose, the package, the positioning and the pitch—I go, I could probably figure that out, but I’d rather not think for myself because it’s 2025 and I’d have someone else do the thought. They’ve already put the thought into it to make this entire episode. And it sounds like something I could probably glean from. I’m probably really good on my purpose, but maybe I could use some help with the packaging and the positioning and feel like I’m pretty good at my pitch. And so you’re going to start listening to the whole episode. Right.

And so you’re giving them the strategy stuff for free, because ultimately as a coach or a consultant, people aren’t buying your strategy. They’re buying your help with implementing that strategy. Right. Strategies are a dime a dozen. They’re everywhere. Right. Even the strategy, even these four P’s are curated from years of experience of Darren and I doing this stuff. Right. It’s not—there’s nothing original about these four P’s. It’s just we’ve learned that hey, when we strip everything down, it’s these four pillars, right? These are the four things that make a successful podcast every single time. It’s proven, you can look it up, you can see the research yourself. What we’re going to do is we’re going to talk to you about the implementation of these four things. It’s not just the strategy.

So if you look at your podcast in that way, the strategy should be right up front. Give away the whole strategy right up front. Then spend the rest of the podcast, especially if we’re talking about coaching or consulting—spend the rest of the podcast on how do you implement that strategy? Unpacking, implementation, that kind of stuff.

Darren: Unpacking. More P’s. Everybody’s going to be going, okay, they just stopped talking. I actually got to go to the bathroom now. We messed up. But yeah, no, that’s—I love that idea Dustin, because it’s a very small portion of the podcast, right? It’s this beginning little element. It can seem—you can easily just go, it’s not that important. It’s not that big of a deal. It’s not, you know, what does it matter? People, you know, they should know how good I am or something like that. Right. But ultimately this is the thing that just hooks them in and draws them across so that they get to you unpacking that piece and walking them through it. And that’s where the gold is. Right.

Dustin: Yeah. We’ve talked before many times in this podcast already in the short episode count that we have so far, but we’ve talked a lot about 1898 CCOS process or the content creation operating system process. By you giving the strategy away in the first 60 seconds, guess what you have? You have micro content. You have a short or a reel or a clip that immediately says this is my strategy. Yeah.

Darren: That’s so true. You already have it. And even thinking about it in that realm. And when I cut up in this episode, your hook at the beginning, your positioning should be one of your first clips to come out of every episode.

Dustin: And isn’t that a great way of looking at it too, Dustin, is basically what you just said there is we’ve spent a lot of time trying to craft and curate these short form pieces of content over time, right? Some of us have gotten really good at that in these 60 second sound bites of hitting them with some good information. So what does that look like to take that skill that you’ve generated over the last few years? And now that becomes your first part of whatever the episode is.

Darren: And I’ve never thought of it that way, Dustin, but that’s actually really, really genius. So you put that at the beginning, logo bump hits, you’re into the episode now where you’re kind of walking them through that, you’re unpacking that whole piece, and you’re leading them through into a deeper conversation, ultimately building trust with them, because they’re going, man, this guy really knows his stuff. He knows how to break this down. He knows how to put it together. And that’s so, so beautiful. So yeah, thank you for that. That’s a good nugget right there that we need to keep around.

All right. Let’s get to the last P. Yeah.

Dustin: All right. The fourth and final, Dustin’s already kind of hinted at it, but I’m here for it. So you got the purpose. You got the packaging, you got the positioning, and now we’re going to talk about the pitch.

Darren: Something that I know a lot of us struggle with—even those of us that are building businesses and trying to get people to engage with us—is that what we do is we do not give enough calls to action. We don’t, or if we do, it’s very confusing on where it is and what we’re doing and what link to click and where are we going and how’s this going to be put together. We make it very, very confusing.

And so ultimately your fourth pillar to make this thing work is the pitch—clear, concise, simple calls to action that will allow people to ultimately do business with you. Because that is the one thing that we always say around here is that your podcast is not to be the 1% of 1%, right? It’s really to craft and build an audience that is your target ideal client. And then in that, you sponsor your product, your service, the thing that you do sponsors your podcast, right? And that becomes the calls to action that you are driving them to.

So somebody might be listening to your podcast and consuming your good free content and using that in their own business. But ultimately you’re inviting them into a way of working with you. There’s a time in the middle of the podcast that you just want to interrupt this conversation real quick to tell you about XYZ, right? And inviting them into deeper levels of engagement with you. And so when you get your pitch right and you can drive people to the thing that you do, now all of sudden your podcast becomes a business generating thing for you.

And maybe you have 150 views on your episode, but ultimately you have clients coming in the door, booking calls with you and doing business with you because of the work of your podcast. So that’s why we always say we’re not here to chase vanity metrics. We’re not here to make you the 1% of the 1%. We are going to help you find your ideal client, your avatar. We’re going to put this in front of them and then we’re going to call them to action over time. Simple, clean and easy. Hey, come work with me. Hey, come work with me. And ultimately your business grows because of the podcast that you put together.

Dustin: I agree. I think when I think about the pitch here at the end of the episode, if you will, a lot of people are going, well, I don’t really know what to pitch or we’re uncomfortable with the pitch. Number one, keep it simple. Don’t overcomplicate it. Right. Hey, it’s easy. Go to dustinpead.com, click on the let’s chat button and hop on my calendar. Boom. That’s it. Right.

But we’ve talked about the what—we’ve given them the strategy upfront in our positioning. And we’ve spent the whole rest of the episode talking about the how—to implement that strategy, right, the implementation. But people will often—how many times have you seen, hey, I see the end result of the recipe. I see the end result of the meal. You’ve given me the recipe to follow. But ultimately, I would really just love it if you cooked it for me. Yeah. 100%.

So that’s where the pitch comes in. We’ve talked about strategy. We talked about the implementation. If you would like help implementing this yourself—yeah, that’s the pitch for every podcast that has that we’re trying to get our listeners to—if it’s beyond entertainment, right? Even the entertainment ones were going, hey, we want you to like and subscribe. Right? We want you to follow. Hey, we want you to tell your friends. Yeah, right.

But at the end of the day, it’s if you’re a coach or consultant, what you’re after at the end of every podcast is you’re saying, look, you may be listening to this and go, you know what, you’re right. This is what we need to be doing, but I don’t have the time or the energy or the capability or the mental capacity to take this on. I need someone to help me do this. That’s when you go, great. Well, I’m going to reach out to Darren in 1898 and he’s going to do our video content for us. Great. I’m going to reach out to Dustin at Chief Creative and they’re going to help us implement these strategies of processes and systems in our agency. Boom, boom, boom, boom. It’s an easy—you’ve given them the whole thing, but that’s why meal kits are still so popular. Right.

Darren: So true. Right. People were going, I understand that this meat and potato recipe would probably be really tasty, but I don’t even have the brain power to figure out—what would be great is if I could just pay you to mail me those ingredients. Yeah. Yeah.

Dustin: I don’t even have to go out and get it. It makes me think of I was chopping an onion the other day for my recipe and I was going, man, I just should have bought chopped onion. My eyes are burning. You know, that was my thought of just I wish somebody would have done this. And now I could have done that for, you know, a little bit more, right? But it’s just it speaks directly to that idea that you’re sharing. It’s just, oh, I wish somebody would have done this for me. Yeah.

Darren: You know this to be true. Every—you, Darren, me, every listener, watcher of this episode knows it to be true—that if it’s a big enough problem that we want to solve, we are willing to throw money at it in order to solve it. And there’s nothing shameful about that. Right. We’re buying back our time with our money in every transaction that we make, right? Darren, if he had bought the chopped onions, he’s buying back the 30, 45 seconds that he would have had to chop the onion.

Dustin: I burn back the—I burn.

Darren: You got to learn how to cut. I have a secret tip on that I’ll tell you about off the air. My wife showed me, but we’re willing to pay for the solution to be implemented. Yeah, right. Hey, we’re a one vehicle family. We need a second vehicle. I’m willing to pay the money to get the second vehicle. Right? That’s—we see it every single day in our life. It’s no different here. So don’t think about the pitch as being this gotcha moment, right? It’s not a gotcha moment. It’s just an offer. We are willing to help. This is what we do for a living. If you would like someone to help you with this, contact us here. Yep.

Dustin: And 100%. When it’s an invitation into something deeper. And the idea even—right, you’ve kind of laid this out—and podcast production and management and all of that is what we do here at 1898. And so if you would be interested in having somebody do that for you, just head on over to 1898creative.com, reach out to us. We will make sure that you get your podcast taken care of. I just did it, right? That’s the example of that. I think—

Darren: Have a great week everybody. Thanks for listening to the podcast. Yep, man. We’ll see you later. Thank you.

Dustin: But in that there is one piece of caution that I want to make sure that we’re aware of is what I see with a lot of podcasts that push against even some of the positioning and different things that we’ve talked about is you have your calls to action very quickly in the episode. It’s before anybody gets to know you at all. You’re just going, hey, buy my thing. Now, a lot of big podcasters do that. A lot of people make that a thing and if we are a small growing podcast and the first thing we try to do is sell, it’s a little bit of a turnoff.

So what I typically say is how can you get a little bit of trust built up before you position anything? And I think the first way is how Dustin was saying it—just simply dropping it in the conversations. The second way is don’t put your ad read at the beginning—put it in the middle, put it a little bit further into the conversation or towards the end, right?

And then make sure that your links are clean and clear and very understandable in the description or the show notes or wherever you’re putting that. If you do those things simple and easy, just putting it there in front of people, it can be a game changer for you with people engaging with your calls to action. And so that’s something to consider as well. And then yeah, the ad read side of things, just in the middle, interrupt that conversation, offer them into or invite them into a deeper conversation or a deeper engagement with you, and then jump back into the conversation. And it’s as simple as that.

But I’m telling you, when you put these four pillars of podcasting together, it will drive business growth for you. And let’s just revisit them, Dustin. Let’s walk through them again, just to be safe. The purpose, the packaging, the positioning and the pitch. The purpose, the packaging, the position and the pitch. Those are your four P’s of podcast perfection. Yes. That’s it.

As we wrap up any final thoughts, Dustin, that you have on that front?

Dustin: No, I gotta go pee.

Darren: Oh, he’s gotta go pee. So with that being said, if you are out there, if you’re looking to launch a podcast, you’re looking to repurpose a podcast or repitch a podcast, we would love to talk with you at 1898. This is what we love doing. We love helping coaches and consultants win with video. And ultimately one of the big things that we do is podcasting. That’s something that we believe in. That’s something that we want to continue to encourage our clients to do as well as do ourself. I know we’re very low episode count on this podcast specifically, but we believe in it so much. We’re investing in it ourselves. And hopefully we can be a little bit of a model for you and eventually you’ll go, hey, I want to do something like that. And you can reach out to us.

So head on over to 1898creative.com. You can connect with us there or head on over to Instagram, Darren Andrew Cooper is where you’ll find me. That’s two R’s and an E, not like some of those weird people that spell it wrong. So D-A-R-R-E-N, Andrew Cooper. Dustin Pead, P-E-A-D. Reach out to us, connect with us. We could say that cool thing—DM us podcast and we’ll get with you. We don’t have that set up, but we could if we wanted.

With that being said, I want you to remember this, that your voice matters in this world more than you know. And that I want you to do the hard work of bringing that out, of sharing your ideas, of sharing your thoughts, and of creating your art. Because we need you in this world more than you know. So go out there and create your art this week. We will see you next time on the Coaching with Content podcast. Peace.