Need Podcast Coaching? Have You Tried Dave Jackson? He's Three Stalls Down

Podmastery: podcasting insights and advice for indie creators

Host Neil Velio recounts a recent experience where veteran podcaster Dave Jackson gave him an unprompted shoutout. Using this as a springboa

Key takeaways

• Dave Jackson of the School of Podcasting provided an unprompted endorsement of Neil Velio's show.
• The 'ideal listener' exercise often fails because it instructs creators to ignore competitors who actually possess their own audiences.

Main topics

• Podcasting collaboration
• Audience building strategies

Notable quotes

Your peers are the only people in your audience who have their own audience.

Conclusion

Podcasters should proactively support others in their niche without ex

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) God knows. Speaker 3 (0:29) out loud to his people. And I was chuffed. I mean, properly chuffed. The sort of chuffed you have to go and give the dogs a walk to try and process. Which is an odd way to feel about a man who on paper is my competition. Speaker 3 (0:54) Welcome along to Podmastery Podcasting Insights, the podcast for indie creators that helps you get more from your podcasting efforts on your journey towards attaining podmastery. I'm Neil Velio, the Podmaster, and we'll probably be coming back to that this episode. The one group of listeners you've been told to ignore. You have to understand, I'm British. Criticism we can handle. We got the infrastructure for that. But somebody being nice about you, unprompted, in public, we're not really equipped. We get Speaker 2 (1:32) awkward. Speaker 3 (1:33) For about a second, I assumed that when this guy talked about me, he meant a different Neil. A better one. I mean, there's bound to be a better podcaster named Neil. But he meant me. And there are only three approved British responses to that. One, pretend you didn't hear it, which I think a lot of podcast gurus do. Two, say, oh, give over to an empty room. And three. Go very quiet and put the kettle on while you process what just happened. None of those is say thank you, which was a problem because I was properly grateful and I had nowhere to put that. Hold that thought because I did. I found somewhere to put it. Let me tell you a bit more about this host. The host was Dave Jackson from the School of Podcasting, a guy who I have an immense amount of respect for. He's been podcasting for 20-odd years. He's got more than 1,000 episodes. He's in the Podcasting Hall of Fame. Yes, podcasting has won. There's a ceremony and presumably some kind of finger buffet. I've never been invited to the hall or the buffet, and I'd like it on record. that I am considerably more upset about the buffet part of that. The episode that Dave put out last week was called Attention vs Connection, and it all opens with a really clever cold open about Dave hitting a complete stranger with a golf ball, and then later, a duck. separate incidents and that's a metaphor for growing a podcast and it works his point was we've become brilliant at measuring attention so through downloads clicks all that vanity stuff but we've forgotten how to measure connection you don't need 10 000 strangers you need a few hundred of the right people who trust you Does that sound familiar? Well, it should do. I agree with every word. And not only that, but I've even used those words on both of my podcasts from time to time. It's slightly annoying, actually, because this would be a much better episode if he was wrong and I came at him. Right? Drama. We all love drama. But I can't. And in the middle of it, as an example of somebody who got known by turning up rather than shouting, he talks about me by name at length. And he even read out my tagline on his show. He got as far as Podmaster and stopped and went back and said, no, sorry, not just Podmaster, the Podmaster. Now, I chose that title. And yes, I was sober. And it was during the day. And I've been fine with it for years. We've got to own our expertise, right? But you hear it read out by a genuinely lovely American man who is so respected and admired in the industry to the point that on his own show he plays clips of Adam Curry, the podfather, talking about him with nothing but respect. And you hear him reading that out slowly and carefully, like he's reading the name off a parcel that's come to the wrong house and... He wants to make sure it gets to the right person. And then suddenly, that name, the Podmaster, doesn't sound like a podcast consultant anymore. It sounds like a wrestler. I mean, I wouldn't make a great wrestler. I'd be third on the bill, probably appearing at a leisure center in Swindon. I'd be coming out to the theme from Grandstand. Speaker 3 (5:32) I will say he spelt my name wrong in the show notes. Neil with an I. There are two kinds of Neil, and I'm the one that looks like a typo. I've spent my entire life saying with an A to everyone from call centers to potential Patreon members. And I want to be clear, I do not care about that. A man with a thousand episodes was kind about me without being asked. He can call me Susan if he likes, and I will absolutely respond to that. So look, I know what this probably sounds like. Man says nice thing about me, I make episode about man being nice, and by Christmas, it's two middle-aged blokes on different continents going, no, you're the insightful one, until somebody's family stages an intervention and potentially builds a brick wall to separate us. It isn't that. I traced back how this happened and I found something I think that you may well be getting wrong. And I know I was. So let's go through this. One, I listen to Pod News Weekly Review, James Cridland and Sam Sethi, the week's podcasting news. It's kind of the industry bible for anybody working in and around podcasting. Sorry, that's a different show. Sorry, Rob and Elsie. Love your show too. We'll talk about that at another point. And that's kind of the point of this episode. But anyway, back on point. At some point, I started sending voice notes. I'd love to tell you that was a strategy. It would make me sound really smart. I'd love to tell you it was pure. It would make me sound nice. It was both at different times. It started as one of those and turned into the other. And I wouldn't even be able to tell you which episode it flipped. What I can tell you is that they've never once read out a comment because it'd be good for Neil. They read it out if it's good for the show. That's the only possible outcome of that. Two, Dave Jackson also listens to that show. And here he is referring to this. Speaker 2 (7:31) Guesting on other podcasts can help. Why? Because there's less friction, because that audience already knows what a podcast is. They know how to listen. And in theory, you're going on somebody's show that shares an audience with you. And so it could be as simple as saying, hey, you should check out Big Podcast Playbook. with my buddy David Hooper. Go check out Podmastery with Neil Veglio. He's a great guy. I've reached out to him. We might do something in the future. It could be as simple as a shout out. It could be a 30 second promo swap. There's all sorts