4. Schizophrenic Content
Note: I have been effectively beaten into submission by the dozen or so of you who have sent me emails saying, 'HEY! WHERE ARE OTHER 7 MISTAKES! GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER, DUDE!' So here's number 4!
Trust - It is a gift that subscribers give you that you cannot afford to lose. Lose trust with a subscriber and not only do you lose them, but you also lose any recommendations of your cast they might ever give to others.
A sure-fire way to lose that trust is to keep them guessing week to week on what your show will be like. Simple Approach: Talk about what your cast says you're going to talk about. If your cast is on investing, don't spend time talking about movie recommendations. If it's on parenting, don't devote half an episode to vacation details. Talk about what your cast says you're going to talk about.
As I said in Part 1, you can take occasional detours, but too many trips off the map and you lose trust you may never get back.
This same is generally true for blogs, but at least with blogs, readers can scan a headline and the first few lines to decide whether they want to read deeper. With a podcast, a listener is often 3 or 4 minutes in before he realizes, 'Hey, this is terrible. There's 4 minutes of my life I can never get back.'
There are exceptions to this rule, but they are rare. Brian McLaren could read a cookbook, and I would get emails on how it was the best reading of a cookbook of all time. But more than likely, you're not Brian. I'm fairly certain I'm not.
Bottom Line: Keep your content consistent.
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