Hey, Reader.

Can I say something that might ruffle a few feathers?

Most business owners are podcasting wrong.

Not because they're bad at it, but because they learned from the wrong people.

Here's what I mean.

A lot of the podcasting advice floating around online was built for and by influencers. People whose entire business model depends on reach. On downloads. On growing a massive audience that they can eventually monetize with sponsorships and brand deals.

And that model works... FOR THEM.

But if you're a coach, consultant, service provider, or entrepreneur with an actual offer to sell?

That playbook is not yours.

Influencers podcast to grow an audience.

Business owners podcast to grow a business.

Those are not the same goal. And they require completely different strategies.

Here's where I see it break down the most:

Downloads: An influencer needs a lot of them. You don't. You need the right ones. A hundred loyal listeners who are your exact ideal client will always outperform ten thousand passive ones who found you through a trending topic.

Consistency for consistency's sake: Influencers often need to feed an algorithm. You need to feed a funnel. Showing up every week with filler content just to stay "active" isn't serving your business — it's just creating busywork.

Virality: An influencer's best episode is the one that blows up. A business owner's best episode is the one that books a discovery call. Those are very different episodes.

Audience size as the success metric: I can't tell you how many business owners have come to me feeling like failures because their downloads are "only" in the hundreds. Meanwhile, their podcast is quietly booking them clients, warming up leads, and building the kind of trust that social media can't touch.

The shift I want you to make is this:

Stop measuring your podcast against influencer benchmarks.

Start measuring it against your business goals.

Is it warming up your leads before they get on a call with you?​
​Is it positioning you as the go-to in your niche?​
​Is it shortening your sales cycle because people arrive already trusting you?

That's a successful podcast.

And that's a fundamentally different show than one trying to hit 100k downloads a month.

If you're building a podcast to support your business, NOT build a media empire, I'd love to help you think through what that actually looks like for your specific offer and audience.

Book a discovery call here and let's figure out what your show is actually supposed to be doing.

Talk soon,
Hayleigh

P.S. — The clients I see get the most out of their podcasts aren't the ones with the biggest audiences. They're the ones who got really clear on what their show was supposed to do inside their business — and built it around that. Everything else followed.