Why you shouldn't waste time in your podcast introduction

Voice Over: 00:00:00

Got dreams of being a professional podcaster, but have no idea what you're doing. This is impossible. That's about to change. A new kind of school. Welcome to the Pod School podcast.

Rachel Corbett: 00:00:10

Hello. Welcome to the show. Jeez.

I'm getting some good questions here, just from people who are thinking about things, not just at a top level, but really getting down to the detail.

Today Sammy has sent me a question saying, do you agree with starting shows very quickly, I. E. Getting into the content rather than a long intro about who you are and what the show is about? Sammy, you are speaking my language. I can tell you right now, I hear so many people wasting people's time in their introduction.

Here is the golden rule. Hurry up, hurry up, just get on with it. You do not need to warm up your audience. This is often not about warming up your audience.

You might tell people it's about warming up your audience, but it's actually more about warming up you.

So when you're doing this, you really need to think, is this about me feeling like I need to get in the groove of things with my co host and we need to kind of just kind of back and forth a little bit before we're hitting our stride? If you need to do that, no dramas at all. Just don't include it in the end result of the podcast. You can record it if you want, but edit it out.

I've heard some podcasts go on for like 15 minutes before they get to any content.

Now these shows I've had to listen to for whatever reason because I've been, you know, giving feedback or whatever, I can tell you right now, I wouldn't have stayed around for 15 minutes if I didn't have to, because that is a big ask. So you really want to give your audience the respect of giving you their time and acknowledge that you don't have to warm them up. They're red hot.

They're wearing a go. They press play on a podcast episode, they're expecting a podcast.

They're not expecting a meandering 15 minute introduction where you talk about your day with your co host and there's absolutely no value in it for them. If that's the essence of your content, if your content is all about about the relationship between you and your co host, different story.

If that's what people have come to expect and that is the content that they want, great, fantastic, go for your life.

But if you are just taking ages to get into into your content or alternatively taking so long to introduce your guests, this is another thing that I See where people will take ages in the introduction, setting them up, talking about that. And then I'm like, just let me hear from this person.

And then the real kicker is, is when shows do that and then they repeat everything that they've just said again in the actual interview with the person.

I'm like, even if you recorded this a while ago, listen back to the start of the intro of your interview and remember that that's what you recorded so you don't repeat yourself. This is 10 minutes of my life I've just wasted. So yes, hurry the heck up in your intro, get right to it.

Get into the content that they come to expect and that they want. You've listeners have things to do. There's heaps of things competing for their time. You don't want to them any reasons to turn off.

And there's so much options out there that I tell you, 30 seconds of like, oh, what the heck is this is enough to make somebody go, no. And the vast majority of people do not make it through the full length of your episodes.

Once you start to release episodes, you can go into platforms like Apple podcasts and Spotify and have a look in those platform specific analytics and see how long are people sticking around in my episodes.

That can be really helpful to get a sense of am I doing hour long episodes here and people are listening to 15 minutes of it and only 10% are making it to the end? If 10% of your audience is making it to the end, that might be one person, depending on how big your audience is.

And you're like, am I doing the full hour for one person? Probably not. So you know, most people are like, I just don't want to stick around here for ages.

I'm going to check out, check it out if it's good, I'm going to change my mind about it in about two seconds if I don't like it.

So really think about those things when you are doing your podcast, when you're recording it, but also when you're editing, editing it, which is your amazing opportunity to take out any crap that didn't work.

You know when you are editing, if you listen through to a meandering intro that goes on and on with absolutely no point, and you go, I'm gonna leave that in. I'm gonna just say right now, you are the problem. You are the problem. You need to start to edit that stuff out.

Cause your audience has better things to do with their time than listen to you talking about what you have for l I can guarantee you I can guarantee you. So just do your warmups, do whatever you need, but just make sure that you're utilizing editing.

One thing a lot of people question about with something like this is don't you have to set up the premise for the show every single time? No, you don't. You have to get people on board, obviously, who are new listeners, but you can do that with a very quick tagline.

Like on this show, I just have an intro that plays out, it's got very quick tagline, explains what the show is, and then I just jump straight into the content as soon as it comes to me.

You can definitely do a very quick setup, but I would be so quick that essentially what you want to think about is, does this get new listeners up to speed really quickly while also not annoying listeners who've heard this 750 times? That's the key, because those repeat listeners are the people that are most valuable to you and those are the people you want to keep around.

So if you are setting up your concept for three minutes at the beginning of every episode, that is gonna get boring for those people who you really don't want to bore. You want them to stick around. So really get into your own head and say, right, am I doing this for my ego?

Do I think this sounds like a fun chat between the two of us? But it's only because I think I was a bit funny in there, but it's actually not really adding any value for my listener.

And ultimately, if just me and my co host know that that existed, that's still a fun time, you know, that's fine. Those are the only people that need to know it existed and I can just get to the stuff that my audience came here for.

So, Sammy, thank you so much for the question. It is an excellent one.

It is a mistake I see so many people make and it is fantastic that you are really thinking about these kind of details because it's these little 1 percenters that make a massive amount of difference to growing your show and finding an audience of people that love it. So appreciate your question. Down in the description of the episode is where you will find a spot where you can submit one if you would like.

And of course head to podschool.com if you would like some more help with your podcast. I'd love to help you start a show that sounds great and doesn't faff on for 20 minutes when your audience doesn't want that. Because do you know what?

The world doesn't need another podcast with a couple of people just talking about something that no one cares about. I tell you right now. Okay, See you next week.

Voice Over: 00:06:49

That's all for today.