Fitness Business School – Lessons Learned from 300+ Podcasts

Full Transcript

Hey, Pat Rigsby here and in this episode, I wanna share a couple lessons I’ve learned in doing over 300
podcasts. So let’s get to it.

Welcome to the fitness business school podcast. The show for fitness business owners who want to grow their income, increase their end impact and improve their lifestyle. Be sure to listen to the end of this episode, because we have a brand new special offer exclusive for listeners. So stay tuned.

So I was looking back through some notes I had and I, and I realized that my first podcast episode
released on August 2nd, 2016. I interviewed Todd Durkin for the ideal business show, which has now
become the fitness business school. Largely because ideal business was not necessarily a term that the
fitness business owner would instantly latch onto. It’s something that I’m trying to, you know,
continually educate people on. So we changed the name and changed the format a little bit, but yeah,
since then I’ve done, I believe over 350 episodes, the number that was thrown out to me yesterday, it
was like 376 with like 300 in the current format that we’re, we are running now. Man, you know, if you
think about it, 300 plus episodes is a lot considering what I, I believe fewer than 10% of podcasts make it to more than 20 episodes.

So, you know, let’s face it, three hundred’s a little bit more than 20. So there, there are a couple of
things that I’ve learned along the way, in addition to the, the vast sort of lesson, you know, sort of
lessons I learned from interviewing guests from sharing things that it kind of forced me to consolidate
my thoughts on that. The lessons that I wanna talk about today are just kind of in the process of creating over 300 episodes of podcast. So the, the first version of this, the ideal business show was more an interview format where I did it for the goal in many ways of being able to go out and schedule time to spend with other professionals, other business owners that I respected a great deal, many of
whom in fact, most of whom I’ve I already considered a good friend.

It’s just because all of these people were entrepreneurial, they’re busy. Most of them live pretty far
away. You know, we, we didn’t have a whole lot of scheduled opportunities to catch up. So selfishly I
wanted to create a scenario where I could sit down and chat with the, these folks and stay connected
with them. So, so it was a lot about relationship building and networking and created, I don’t know,
maybe 60 or 70 episodes that way. And what was cool was these, these folks all had their own iteration
of their own ideal business and it didn’t exactly mirror mine. So as I talked about creating your ideal
business, I could kind of shine a spotlight on the fact that ideal doesn’t mean uniformity, everybody
having the same thing. So that was the first version of the podcast. And frankly it, it was tremendously
enjoyable, but as I kind of started to run through it, I didn’t wanna get to the point where I was just
interviewing random people to just keep the podcast going.

You know, I had already interviewed 50, 60, 70 people and I felt like that was you know, those were all
people that I knew well enough that I could shine that spotlight on them. And I could feel confident that
the things that I shared were, were gonna be valuable to my audience. And then it, you know, is gonna
be congruent with what I wanted this podcast to be about. Well, so as I kind of started to see that, well,
dry up a little bit, and I started getting all these messages saying, well, Hey, this person would be a great guest for your podcast. That person would, I’m like, no, I, I’m not running a podcast to just promote other people, indiscriminately. I I’m just, you know, that wasn’t the goal. So I said, okay, I need to kinda hit the pause button and decide what I want the next iteration of this to be.

So the next version of the podcast kind of was, Hey, I’m just going to do coaching sessions. I feel like, you know, I, I’m sure I’ve done more one-on-one business coaching sessions with fitness professionals than anybody else on earth. There have been plenty of people. Who’ve been doing stuff for a long period of time or whatever else, but a lot of those guys were like workshop people or that sort of thing. But for me, I’ve always really gravitated to coaching. And so I thought, well, you know what? I could just do a recorded coaching session. And you know, there’ll be a, a lot of opportunity, a, a mentor and friend of mine, Dean Jackson does that with his more cheese, less whiskers podcast. And I, and I love it as a consumer. So I thought, well, I could do that and do coaching sessions.
And that would be really helpful to the person I was coaching. It’d be really helpful to the audience
because they could certainly get ideas and tips and it might even get them to say, well, Hey, I’d like to
hire pat to get personalized coaching from him. Well, it, it was fun to do, but logistically it was kind of a pain because I didn’t have a, a really systematic schedule to do it. I’d have people, no show I’d have
people cancel because it wasn’t a paid coaching session. It was free. And so I don’t think people valued it quite enough and logistically it just made it hard to have a consistent production schedule. So I kind of put that on pause, went back to the drawing board and said, you know, here’s what I know I can count on.

I’ve been doing a daily email for, you know, at the time, probably 15 years.
And I did really well with sending out this daily email because it, there was a, a method that I could
use to be consistent. So I started scheduling our, our, our good friend, Paul to come over and serve as
the podcast producer. Whereas he had mostly been doing video production for us for, you know, a
decade. And we had a set time that probably 90% of the time would just stick to you know, Wednesday
mornings. And ironically enough, today is Thursday morning when I’m recording this. But you know, I
knew if he was coming, I needed to have things ready. So there was a deadline there, there was a kind of a uniform goal. We would record, you know, three podcast episodes. I wanted it to be kind of in line
with what the newsletter was. And so short bite size lessons that people could latch onto that usually
we’re in the 10 minute range.
I mean, not always because sometimes my newsletters are longer too, but and, and no holding back
this, isn’t just the normal interview format. It’s like, Hey, I’m going to share things that I would with you if you were sitting in front of me in my office doing a coaching session, and that format has allowed me with obviously Paul’s, Paul’s help, but I mean, honestly, Paul does like 90% of the work here, and I do like 10 to be really consistent. I mean, we roll out like three episodes a week, every week.

And so I, I think that there, there are a few lessons that I’ve picked up here along the way, aside from the gold that I’ve picked up learning from some of the guests I’ve had and different things like the first is, you know, you need some sort of plan to get started, but it doesn’t have to be a perfect plan.
I’ve gone through three iterations of this podcast to arrive at the format that I’m at now. And I, I’m not
gonna tell you this is the permanent format, but it’s certainly a format that has allowed it to be very
consistent. So the first format, I had a plan that served the goal that I wanted it to have. And so that was
the second thing is I had a goal to do this. I had a specific outcome that I wanted. And for me, that
outcome was probably less about, you know, number of downloads or consumer facing stuff and more
about, Hey, how do I strengthen relationships I have with people that, that I’m already friends with and
how do I provide real value for the people who are already paying attention to me? And that’s kind of
been the theme with my podcast throughout, I’m all for getting more downloads or whatever else, but I
see the podcast as a, a vehicle to better coach educate, serve the people who already know of me more
than as a lead generation tool.

Yeah, it’s great. If people’s first kind of connection with me is the podcast, but in, in most cases, I feel
like it’s usually somebody who’s already aware of me, and this is a format that they prefer to consume.
Like for me, I’m way better at consuming podcasts or audios than I am video because I can do it. You
know, I can do it on a walk. I can do it working out. I can do it without having to be stationary in front of a computer. So the format was big. So having a plan, finding a rhythm to be consistent, setting a
deadline that Wednesday morning kind of podcast schedule for us has been gold for me because I, there
have been plenty of times that I’m like, man, I don’t know what I want to cover or I’m, you know, I, I’m
kind of having the verbal equivalent of writer’s block or whatever, and somehow they still get done.
And I, I think it allows me to organize my thoughts and it’s been tremendously valuable in setting that
deadline and saying, this is when I do this thing. And the, the next step is, you know, being willing to
adapt and evolve and not feel like, Hey, if I’m you know, I’m tethered to this interview format forever.
No, I mean, you find the, the thing that works for you, that you can be consistent with you do it over
time. And you know, and then for me understanding what role I was going to be best served at playing
in the podcast and finding somebody I could trust to play the, the other roles, having Paul be the
producer of the podcast. Well, I already knew and trusted Paul and knew he would take care of it. I
could do the part that I wanted. So, you know, I didn’t dread doing it because I could kind of play to my
strengths and know what my responsibility is and not think about, well, how do I get this part done?
Or how do I get that part done? Again, tremendously valuable for me to, to be able to, to understand
that you know, this is my job, my job isn’t everybody’s job. So, you know, having a, a way to get started
you know, having a plan ha you know, having that goal, having deadlines and a schedule to do things,
and instead of thinking, well, I’ll just fit it in whenever playing my best role. And then I think in, I, in both like the original iteration and when Paul took over producing it, I think committing to the long game was the other big piece of this puzzle. I knew in the beginning, I said, okay, I’m going to do this for six months, no matter what, I don’t care. If two people listen to it, I’m gonna do this for me for six months because without doing it for six months, I’m not gonna have any idea whether or not it’s good, whether or not like I’m not gonna be good at it because it’s new to me.

There’s not gonna be a big enough sample size to, to know what’s right. And what’s wrong. Kind of the
same thing with this, like current iteration is, you know, we’ve kind of kept punching the clock on this
and, and I’m not somebody who goes and reviews the number of downloads every week or whatever
else, because, you know, when I do ask those numbers are increasing, but they’re not increasing
because I’m micromanaging it, they’re increasing because we’re doing the work that we want to do, and
we’re being consistent at it. And it compounds over time. And so for me thinking, okay, if I’m going to
adopt a new marketing channel, if I’m gonna adopt any sort of new thing like this, if I’m not willing to
commit to it for at least six months, then I shouldn’t do the first day because you have to be bad at stuff
before you’re good at it.

You have to be willing to, to practice and figure it out. And like I said before, I mean, automatically like you are in that top 10%, if you just make it to 20 episodes doing this. Right. So I, I mean, without
question, I’m in the top 1% of all podcasters, as far as number of episodes created, and that was just
kind of staying the course. So hopefully some of these simple takeaways are valuable to you, and
hopefully, maybe it even prompts you to go back and listen to some of those earlier episodes because
man, I interviewed Todd Durkin and John Barardi and I’ve interviewed Eric Cressey a couple times. I’ve interviewed all sorts of industry leaders who approached things, not necessarily the same as me, but found their own way to ideal. So there’s some really cool things. There, there are all sorts of lessons and tips that I think you know, if you were to go, just put this stuff into action, you could totally transform a business. So lots of gold here don’t hold anything back. I, I’ve probably been brutally honest, many times over in things that I’ve not done well, as well as all the things that might have helped me along the way. So thanks for listening. And hopefully the lessons I shared today can help you grow your own business.

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