How I Grew My Podcast To 300 Million Downloads (My Exact Playbook + Mistakes)

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1:26was a complete failure. And everything I'm going to teach you today, every principle, every strategy, every lesson in the playbook I will share got us to that 300 million downloads. It came from understanding exactly why that first podcast failed and what to do differently with this podcast. So let's start there.

1:50Welcome back to the$100 MBA show. I'm your host, Omar Zen home, where I deliver practical business lessons three times a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to help you start, grow, and scale your business. If this show has helped in any way, it would be amazing if you could drop us a quick review on whatever app you're using to listen to this podcast right now. It helps me and my team bring new episodes every week. And more importantly, more entrepreneurs will be able to discover our podcast so you can help someone else start their journey. Thanks so much. This podcast isn't my first podcast.

2:27My first podcast was called People Who Know Their S***. It's a pretty good name, right? But unfortunately, the podcast was s***. The concept was pretty simple. We interviewed interesting people in business, we asked them to share their knowledge, and we published it. And we thought it was a pretty good idea. The problem is that every other podcast was doing exactly the same thing. We had no differentiator. And on our best episode, we had Gary Vaynerchuk on and we had 400 downloads, which wasn't so impressive because I was getting more people to my blog post back then. Now, around this time, Nicole had a filming gig that she had to do in New York and we were living in San Diego and we drove across country so that we can save some money and have the open road to discuss why this is not working.

3:11Why is this podcast failing? We took this opportunity of the open road to just get honest with ourselves. We looked at the top business podcasts at that time. There were players like Tim Ferriss for The Tim Ferriss Show, who has five New York Times bestselling books. All this guy does is win. He has a huge audience, right? We had people like Pat Flynn, who had a huge fan base and was podcasting way before us. You have people like John Lee Dumas of Entrepreneurs on Fire, who is publishing a podcast episode seven days a week, every single day without missing a single episode. We had people like Jordan Harbinger of the Jordan Harbinger show who was podcasting before the iPhone in 2006.

3:50I mean, who was even listening? This is crazy. So we had to really just take an honest look in the mirror and be like, how are we going to compete with these other interview podcasts? And it really just dawned on us that we're not really leveraging any of our strengths. And that's really the biggest takeaway that we got from this whole reflection exercise. Nicole and I are former educators, right? We taught in the classroom for over a decade each. And I asked myself, why am I interviewing? Maybe I should be teaching on this podcast. Maybe I don't have all the clout of the other people that we mentioned and we looked at, but I probably am a better teacher than the rest of those guys.

4:28You know, I have a master's in education. I've taught five classes five days a week for 10 years. So I'm pretty good at breaking down complex ideas and making them digestible and easy to understand. The other thing that we realized is that we needed to add something to the genre of business podcasting. Try to innovate a little bit. You know, Nicole loves language learning, and one of her favorite podcasts is Coffee Break French. She also likes Coffee Break Spanish, which are small, bite-sized language lessons. And we thought, hey, no one's really doing this in business, where you can learn a quick lesson, implement, and come back for more.

5:02I start with this story because before you launch your podcast, you need to ask yourself, What's your competitive advantage? Why will somebody listen or watch your podcast? It's much easier to succeed if you're actually fulfilling a specific need for a specific person because you're really going to be able to speak the language. And with The$100 MBA Show, we built a crystal clear answer to that question. Who are we speaking to? Well, we're speaking to small business owners that are looking to get better every day and try to grow. And actually, they were growing with us because every time I learned a lesson in my own business, I would share it on the show.

5:38The other thing we realized is that entrepreneurs are busy, right? We're all busy. So we don't have a lot of time to go through a three-hour interview. So we wanted to make sure our episodes were bite-sized, 20 minutes, so you can listen to an episode on your commute, try to implement it, and then come back for more the next episode. So the point of me sharing all of this is that you really ask yourself the question, what's the unique value you're adding to your show? Why will people listen or watch your podcast episodes? Maybe it's your experience. Maybe it's the format. Maybe it's even just your personality.

6:09But you have to add something unique that makes people want to tune in. Because everything else I'm going to teach you today will not work. Because if you market your show and then no one comes back, you're really just filling up a leaky bucket, right? You're going to lose your listeners as fast as you gain them. Now, having said that, let's start with lesson number one. And that is to launch like you mean it. Launching your podcast for the first time is an opportunity that only happens once, right? You only get to launch once. So you want to make sure that you make it count. You take advantage of this situation.

6:41And a lot of people, they just kind of launch in a whisper and they kind of tell their friends and they put it up there and they're almost like not proud of what they put out there. You need to be super proud of what you put out there and make sure that you tell as many people as possible and market that first push because this is your chance to get as many listeners as possible to learn about your show, learn about your story and get subscribed. What we did is we made sure our first five episodes were the best episodes we could ever create. I literally re-recorded these five episodes probably over a dozen times because I wanted to make sure that when our listeners first listened or consumed our show, they wanted more.

7:19They really felt like, hey, this is really valuable. And like they say, you only have one opportunity to make a first impression. You want to make sure that you nail it. Number two, when you launch a show, tell everyone you know. I'm talking about literally everyone. I literally went in my phone, I scrolled into my contacts, and I looked at everybody, family, friends, people I met once at a conference. I either called them, I either sent them a text message. If I had their email, I emailed them. If I didn't have their email, I DM them on social media. I added them on posts. Literally, I had no shame.

7:56Why? Because I only have one chance at this. And if you have any feelings of, you know, positive feelings towards me and you like me or you met me and you had a good impression, then this is the one thing I'm asking you to do is to subscribe, follow, give us a review. I literally wanted to make sure that anybody who ever met me in my life knew that I was launching this show. Now, a lot of people skip this step and it's a huge disaster if you do so. Why is this a big mistake? Because when you launch your show, the algorithm is trying to help you out. It's trying to find your audience, whether it's Apple or Spotify or YouTube or whatever it might be.

8:29So you want to give them as many signals as possible. I want to give the algorithm a chance for them to see, oh, there's people interested in this. There's people subscribing all of a sudden. And what I decided to do in this moment is when I shared it with everybody, I asked them to try to subscribe, try to review all in the same week so that it was a compounded effect. So it created a great strong signal. Let me tell you a little story. Nicole and I, we wanted to learn more about who are the people that will be listening to our show, who would subscribe and not friends and family that were going to kind of sugarcoat what they say.

9:00We wanted to talk to strangers. So what we did is we filled up our Esky or our cooler with ice and we went to the supermarket and fill it up with soft drinks, Coca-Cola's and Sprites. And then we went to the boardwalk in San Diego. We're living in San Diego, California at the time. And we just stood there with a whiteboard. We literally just pulled off our wall in the office and wrote on the whiteboard, free cold drinks for iTunes love. And at the time, podcasts were on iTunes. And we just held up this whiteboard and people just walk by the boardwalk. And there's like hundreds of people walking by and they're like, hey, what's this all about?

9:31Hey, I asked them, would you like a cold drink? And they would open up the cooler and they would take a can of soda out and they'll start drinking the soda. And I said to them, hey, do you listen to podcasts? And be like, oh, some people are like, oh, what's a podcast? Remember, this is 2014. And I would explain it to them. And I said, hey, search our show is what our show is all about. Have you ever thought about starting a business? Do you have any dreams? And we have a small chat and they would subscribed to the show and I said, hey, if you like the show, leave us a rating and review. And we literally did this like over 100 times to random strangers until the cops shoot us away.

10:02But it's okay. We had a lot of fun. And most of all, we got to put a face to the people that we were serving. We understood what the people looked like, what their stories were, what some of the businesses are trying to build. And it proved to ourselves that we were proud of what we built, that we would actually share with people that we'd never met before. So my advice to you is when you launch your show, or if you're just early on in your stages of launching your show, get your first listeners. Start with your first five, then your first 10, then your first hundred, then your first thousand.

10:31Literally meet them in person if you can, because this is going to allow you to understand who you are serving, who you're building this podcast for, so that you can grow for them. Lesson number two, get on other podcasts. One of the best ways to grow your podcast is to be a guest on other podcasts. Why? Because if you add value to that podcast, if people like your interview, people like what you say on that show, and they know you have a podcast, it's much easier to convert them to your podcast since they're already on the platform. So they're like listening on Spotify and they hear your interview and they're like, oh, cool.

11:05Let me check out this person's podcast. It's not a huge leap. They don't have to open up a browser. Maybe they're driving their car. It's easy for them to find your show. Now, there are two things that really worked for me when it comes to this strategy. Number one is that we made sure that whenever I got on a show that I was well prepared, make sure that I understood the audience very well. I would listen to all or at least most of the episodes of that podcast to understand where are the gaps? Where is the audience being underserved? Where are they not getting what they need? And maybe I can fill that gap so that when listeners are listening, they're like, oh, this person's different.

11:37This person's adding unique value. I'd like to learn more from them. And number two, this is a little bit of a ninja move. But what we did is that we batched all the interviews and asked them to make sure they publish the interview the same week we launched the podcast. So I literally did like 20 interviews on other podcasts. But my only kind of requirement was like, hey, I'd love to be on your show. I'm happy to do it for free. I'm happy to do whatever I can to support your show. But I need you to release this episode on this week, right during this week, because that's the same week we were launching our show.

12:10So what would happen was it almost felt like we were everywhere that week. Everyone was like, oh, I heard about you on this podcast, heard about these podcasts. And then people would subscribe to the show and it would, again, push the algorithm in those early days to allow us to get some momentum. A quick note about the strategy. Please don't be precious. Please don't go to podcasts and say, oh, your audience is not big enough. You're new. You don't have enough reviews. No, you're nobody right now. All right. You need to make sure that you're not picky and you give as much value as possible. By the way, new podcasts are a really good place to get started.

12:41They have a loyal audience and they are new to podcasting often when they listen to a new podcast. And if they like what you have to say on the show, they're going to want to subscribe to your show and see what you got. Till this day, we use this strategy. Cindy, who's on my team, she books all the shows that I want to be on. A lot of people now reach out to us and we try to fit it in my schedule. but what's really good is it allows me to really talk to different audiences, not just my audience at the 100 MBA show, because we often get on other podcasts that are not in the business space, maybe in other genres or other markets, so that I can add value in a way that will help those people, not just my people.

13:18And when you do this, this expands your audience. It allows people that you normally would not reach out to or would serve to learn about you. And for example, I would get on a podcast for mommy bloggers, moms that run blogs in their free time. And this is not my core audience, but it became part of my audience because I got on a lot of shows that served that audience. And now I'm happy to serve those audiences and learn more about how I can help them and learn more about their business so that our lessons and our strategies will apply to them. This strategy works not only because it's free, you're not spending any ad dollars to get on anybody's show, but also you're learning how to be a guest on a show.

13:55It's a totally different dynamic when you are answering the questions rather than asking them or delivering your lesson like I'm doing with a solo episode. So this is a skill in itself that is worth building. Running a business means you're always reachable until you're not. And the moment you miss that call, that text, that follow-up, a competitor is the one that picks it up. That's why today's episode is brought to you by Quo, spelled Q-U-O, the business phone system built so you never miss an opportunity. With Quo, all your calls, texts, and voicemails live in one place so anyone on your team can pick up a conversation, see the full history, and respond fast.

14:34Set up in minutes on any device, keep your existing number, and add teammates as you grow. No IT, no hassle. And Quo's built-in AI agent handles after-hours calls, answers questions, and even books appointments so you never miss a lead, even when your team is offline. Money is on the line. always say hello with Quo. Try Quo for free plus get 20 % off your first six months when you go to quo.com slash MBA. That's q-u-o.com slash MBA. You know that feeling when there's a spark building inside you that you were meant for more? That's your own drive pushing you towards what's next. Capella University gets that.

15:16With their FlexPath learning format, you can set the pace and earn your degree without putting your life on pause. You've built experience and you know what you're capable of. Now, this is your time to turn that momentum into more. The only real question is, what can't you do? Learn more at capella.edu. Lesson number three, test everything. This is the lesson that separates the podcasts that plateau, they hit a certain level and they can't grow past that, and ones that keep on growing. Experimentation is our middle name here at the$100 MBA show because we understand that it's hard for us to know what works without trying a lot of different things.

15:56So we literally test everything. Episode titles, thumbnails, hooks, topics, even what I wear on camera, right? The format of the intro, everything. And I'm going to tell you a little secret about this. Experimentation is one of those things in your business where you're like, yeah, I know I have to do this, but it's kind of hard and it never gets done. It's kind of like the too hard basket, like, I'll get on experimentation later. So the hack of this is you need to hire somebody for this, right? You need to actually get somebody on our team that will be responsible for experimentation. And we have a rock star on our team, Sinead, who takes care of all of this.

16:30She's dedicated to helping us test and optimize everything. We test reels against each other to see what topics work before we even publish the episode. So literally, we'll do a reel and we'll test this reel with a trial reel. And we'll see, does this topic resonate with people? And if it does, let's create an episode about it. Why do we do this? Well, because it takes a lot of effort to publish a podcast episode, regardless of your cadence or your frequency. So we publish three days a week, which is a lot. But because it's so much effort, why spend all that effort if you don't know what you're about to do is not going to work or work?

17:05So you want to get as close as possible to a hypothesis that, hey, we have some signals here. We have some data. We have some information that people like this topic or interested in this topic or this is quite engaging. So once we know that, then we start building out a script, we start building out a theme, we understand how to develop this episode so that we can make sure we cater to that need. Now, it's an experimentation. So sometimes we create the episode and it doesn't do as well as we hoped. But that's okay. It gives us data, tells us what works and what doesn't. Some things that don't generally do well, like say, for example, we publish an episode that didn't have as many downloads as our typical episode.

17:43You know, it's a low outlier. What that tells us is that, you know, there's something here that didn't work. But sometimes in a failure, there are things that do work. Like we realize, oh, the retention was pretty good, but people, you know, dropped off after a certain period of time. And we realize after that, they stuck around. So maybe the beginning needs to be fixed, you know, the hook or the start or the intro of the episode. So this is how granular experimentation is when it comes to making sure you publish a great podcast episode after episode. Now, this only works if you are iterating every time you're creating a piece of content.

18:16This means every time you put something out, you're changing one little thing, one little variable to see if that's gonna work or not. But if you're just doing the same thing over and over and over and expecting a different result, it's literally the definition of insanity, right? You don't wanna do that. What you wanna do is you wanna change one little variable. Maybe it's your intro, maybe it's the music, maybe it's the way you frame the shot. All these things can change so that you can learn if that works or it doesn't. Does it improve things or not? Sometimes you're not going to get any kind of signal.

18:46That's okay. Just keep experimenting. Keep iterating every time you produce an episode. I hope this episode is valuable for you and you're seeing behind the curtain and really understanding what it actually takes to grow a podcast that is somewhat successful. I'm really proud of what we've done and I want to share with other people. Now, a lot of people ask me, like, why do you do this? Okay, why do you share all your secrets? Well, because I kind of know most people are not going to do it. It takes effort. It takes commitment. And those who do do it, I think they deserve to win because I want to see other people win as well because I think rising tide raises all boats and that's great.

19:21So I want to see you win. And that's why I want you to subscribe to the podcast because we have an upcoming episode I don't want you to miss. It's all about how Netflix grew to a$366 billion beast. I share with you Reed Hastings Secrets, who's the CEO of Netflix. So hit subscribe so you don't miss it. Four more lessons. Let's go. Lesson four, build an organic marketing engine. Listen, you got to treat your podcast like a product, like something that you're selling, because it is. You are selling in exchange for people's attention. You want to make sure that people are aware of your show. So you have to market your show.

19:56So over the years, we've built a machine that consistently puts the show in front of new people. And we found out what works best and what doesn't. And we realized that you really need to invest in video content. And a lot of ways, you probably noticed this already on Instagram, TikTok, but most podcasts are moving into video because it's very hard for you to market an audio podcast without a visual. OK, in the early days, people used to just do like these audiograms and they're kind of cheesy and it's not really stopping people from scrolling. So video is a good way for you to promote even if you just have an audio podcast.

20:32So you need to make sure that you are investing in your video content. Specifically, I'm talking about short form video. Talk about reels on Instagram, TikTok videos, YouTube shorts. These are really powerful for organic distribution. You got to see this more like a billboard. OK, this is not going to give you direct listeners, but it's going to create an awareness of your show. It's going to create a brand around your podcast. and you're going to start seeing people knowing what to look for when they open up the app. So for example, if I'm seeing a lot of reels of a particular podcast, in the back of my mind, I know that this is a podcast I should check out.

21:10So the next time I open Spotify or Apple, it's probably the first thing I'm going to search for. What is that show all about? For example, this is how I discovered a lot of my favorite comedy podcasts. I saw a lot of reels of Theo Vaughn's podcast on Instagram. And then one day I was on the treadmill and I was looking for a new podcast to listen to, a new comedy podcast. And I thought, oh, Theo Vaughn is funny. Let me check out his podcast. I've been seeing his reels recently. So short form video on social media is a branding play, and it's a way for you to get more exposure. So you're top of mind.

21:39Now, I know a lot of you like to geek out and make sure that there's some sort of return on investment for all your work. So here's a little strategy that has worked in the podcast game. What you want to do is you want to clip up your episodes. So you find the mic drop moments, the good moments that really get people hooked into your show and you make a 60 second clip out of that portion of the show. So maybe you'll have four or five clips per episode. And what you do is that you post that on social media, whether it's Instagram or TikTok or whatever, and you can create what's called a ManyChat automation.

22:08ManyChat is an app that integrates with social media so that when people respond or comment on that thread, and you might have noticed this already, somebody said like comment, you know, a keyword, like for example, comment marketing. And then when they comment marketing, they instantly get a direct message to the full link of the episode, the full episode that we can watch it on YouTube or they can listen to it on Apple or Spotify or wherever it might be. This automation allows or encourages people that are just passively watching your videos to engage with your videos and to comment so that they can get the full conversation.

22:38What's great about this is that it runs continuously and once you set it up, it's kind of set and forget. You don't have to really revisit it and you don't have to comment or you have to reply to every single person that puts a comment in that post. I gotta be honest with you, Over the years, we've built a team to make this sustainable. Now, of course, you could do this yourself, but, you know, I want to make sure that I empower other people on my team to make sure I don't have to worry about this and I can just focus on the content. So Wendy and Mack on our team are able to focus on these automations and build out these posts.