Dr. Brad Miller [: 00:00:02

Hey, good people, and welcome to Podcasting to the Next Level. I'm glad you're here. Let me tell you a little bit about who's talking to you and why this show exists. My name is Dr. Brad Miller, retired pastor turned podcaster, the creator of an event called PodIndy.com, P-O-D-I-N-D-Y.com, a premier one-day podcaster training event designed to be affordable and effective for independent podcasters who wanna take their show, their their life, their business to the next level. This is a limited episode podcast which will expire on November 7th, 2026. So this show, Podcasting to the Next Level, is really me talking about the teachings of people who I deeply respect who are gonna be a part of PodIndy.com. Cliff Ravenscraft is our keynote speaker.

Dr. Brad Miller [: 00:00:55

We're gonna be talking about him today. Dave Jackson, who'll be presenting from the School of Podcasting, he'll be presenting about podcast growth at PodIndy. Yeah. And John Lee Dumas, who will be joining us by video presentation from Entrepreneurs on Fire. You can get a free download of some of the key teachings of these 3 legends right now at PodIndy.com. And here's a little incentive for you to stick around. If you listen for the Easter egg somewhere in the middle to the end of this episode, you'll find a way to get a discount on your ticket price, which is already very low. And just know this is a limited edition podcast and it expires November 7th, 2026, the date of PodIndy.com, which is both a live in-person event and livestream event and is recorded.

Dr. Brad Miller [: 00:01:43

Okay, let's get into it. Today we're gonna talk about some of the teachings of Cliff Ravenscraft. We're gonna call this Forget the Numbers, Find Your Right Audience. So I wanna share with you today a confession that I have to make about my own podcasting career. I've been podcasting for 14 years, almost 2,000 episodes that I've published. on several different podcasts. And a confession I make is that I check my download numbers more than I'd like to admit. And honestly, sometimes whether my download numbers are up or down impacts my mood for the day.

Dr. Brad Miller [: 00:02:20

If they're up, I'm feeling good. If they're down, I'm kind of doing— I got the blues. Maybe, just maybe, that's you as well. Cliff Ravenscraft, the podcast Answer Man, makes a point of saying something that runs kind of contrarian to this thinking. And, uh, really, really a lot of the teaching almost everybody in the podcast industry tells you to chase. He says that audience size numbers from the directories and the platforms are often inaccurate and frankly not transparent. The number on your dashboard may not be even telling you the truth about your own show. So if you're building your sense of progress, or worse, your sense of self-worth Based on your download numbers, you're building on sand.

Dr. Brad Miller [: 00:03:07

But here's the deeper point, the one I wanna make and that Cliff makes in his teaching, and I really want you to take with you. And that is, it's not just that the numbers are unreliable, it's that the right audience matters more than your numbers, especially if you're just counting on the large numbers. A show with 500 deeply engaged listeners who are exactly who you are trying to reach with your show will change more lives lives, generate more income, and create more genuine impact than a show with 50,000 listeners who are only kind of loosely interested and maybe just vaguely tuned in. They're the ones who tune out halfway through, and they're really not the right fit for you. So what makes an audience a right fit isn't whether it's big or not. It has to do with other factors. Cliff Ravenscraft says to clarify that the teaching points you want to go for are to clarify a focus and memorability in your message. So if your show is trying to be for everyone, it ends up being memorable to no one.

Dr. Brad Miller [: 00:04:22

But if you know exactly who you're talking to, and you say something clear enough to stick with them, you create a deeper, more profound impact altogether. So let me share with you something that illustrates this. Cliff has talked about a moment during the pandemic when a woman entered the Clubhouse session where he was participating in, he was a part of, and she was in real crisis in her life. She was contemplating suicide and was looking for a reason to keep living. And that moment is a stark reminder of why clarity and focus in how we communicate matters. It's not an abstract content strategy session here for everybody. When your message is clear enough and aimed at the right person, it can reach someone in a moment that matters more than any download number or chart ever could. And the real reason that chasing a bigger, vaguer audience is the wrong game is that you're not just diluting your message for more reach, you're often making it less likely to land powerfully with the person who you are aiming at, your target audience.

Dr. Brad Miller [: 00:05:32

That's the ones who really need to hear it. So here's the challenge for this episode of Podcasting to the Next Level. I want you to write a single sentence that describes your ideal listener, not kind of vaguely people interested in marketing, or in my case, people kind of overall impacted by cancer. But for, or for people who are like fans of true crime, but something specific, their situation, their need, what they're struggling with right now. If that helps, give that person a nickname in your head and write that sentence down and look at the next time you sit down to record it. In my case, one of my main podcasts is called Cancer and Comedy, and it is all about helping cancer-impacted people who are not done living their life To live with hope and humor in their life. And my specific avatar I go for, I call him Bud. He's a guy who's been diagnosed with cancer, who had needs, is not done living, wants to live a full life to the end of his life, but also wants some means and methodologies and strategies to get there, some ways to cope with hope and humor.

Dr. Brad Miller [: 00:06:40

And that's what we look to do on our show. That's more of a specific approach to this rather than broadly like cancer patients. Write something down, be specific to people's situations, their needs, what they're struggling with, what the problem is that you can solve. And if it helps to give that person a nickname, I told you mine was Bud, and write that sentence down and look at it regularly. Put it near your desk, your workstation, and put it someplace where you see it regularly. You might even want to put a picture of a person there. Maybe it's a real person or maybe it's someone you made up. But put it there and give yourself that visualization.

Dr. Brad Miller [: 00:07:20

This is something that you can do to help you take your podcast, your life, your business, everything to the next level. Now, I wanna just say something before we go here in just a minute. This episode touches on a little bit of some sensitive areas. We talked a little bit about suicide and suicide crisis, and this is a part of the overall crisis of people feeling isolated and depressed. And I don't want to leave us without speaking to that in a practical manner. So if you know someone who is struggling with suicide ideation or anything along that line, help them to reach out to a crisis line, for instance, or a trusted professional in this area. They don't have to carry it. You don't have to carry it alone.

Dr. Brad Miller [: 00:08:06

So for instance, in the United States, you can call or text 988. That's a 24/7 free crisis line regarding suicide ideation and other traumatic things. Or you can call 1-800-273-8255. And the online version of this is 988lifeline.org. Hope that you'll keep that in mind in this episode. This episode, this entire podcast will expire on November 7th, the date, November 7th, 2026, the date of PodIndy.com. But until then, we're gonna be talking then about the teachings of Cliff Ravenscraft, of Dave Jackson, and John Lee Dumas. So what we're going to talk about in our next episode of Podcasting to the Next Level is about the limiting beliefs that quietly convince podcasters that their format, their voice, or their background isn't good enough, and what you can do about it.

Dr. Brad Miller [: 00:09:04

Okay, before I go, here's a quick recap. I'm Dr. Brad Miller. We're doing a short, limited-term podcast about the teachings of Cliff Ravenscraft, Dave Jackson, and John Lee Dumas, who are speakers at podindy.com, my one-day training event for independent podcasters. You can get a free download of the key teachings at podindy.com. This event is live in person and live streamed. That's important to know. And everything's recorded.

Dr. Brad Miller [: 00:09:34

It happens on November 7th, 2026. And since you're such good enough people to stick around to the end of this podcast, the ticket for podindy.com is already Pretty inexpensive. We made it affordable on purpose. But if you put in the code word PACER, P-A-C-E-R, after my beloved Indiana Pacers basketball team, you'll get a discount of $5 off your ticket. So if this episode did you a favor or helped you in your life to get more clarity about your own podcast, about what you can do to have impact and influence and increase your income, please Listen to our upcoming episodes and share this episode with somebody in your life who needs a bit of a mindset reset today. And subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss an episode. We're on Apple, Spotify, and on YouTube. I'm Dr.

Dr. Brad Miller [: 00:10:27

Brad Miller from podindy.com. Until next time, so long, good people.