495 - Audience Reduction Strategy: How Fewer Listeners Can Create More Impact

Cliff Ravenscraft (0:00): I attend a lot of conferences, and many of those conferences are for the podcasting industry. There is a common theme in session titles and session descriptions and it seems to be leaning heavily towards audience growth strategies. I have a lot of people who come to me because they're like, Cliff, I heard you're somebody I could turn to to help me out with what I'm most trying to achieve. Audience growth. I need some strategies to grow my audience.

Cliff Ravenscraft (0:40): I seem to have hit a plateau. I have been podcasting for fill in the blank length of time and I only have whatever that number is. And I love looking at their face. Usually, I'm doing these conversations on Zoom and so I see the video of them on the other side of the camera. I love the look on their face when I said, how about I first share with you an audience reduction strategy?

Cliff Ravenscraft (1:11): I think that might be more of a fit for what you're looking to achieve. Oh my goodness. I've had this conversation a lot over the last two decades and I wanna share just briefly off the top of my head. What do I mean by this? Well, the first thing is I just wanna challenge the assumption that growth is universally good.

Cliff Ravenscraft (1:38): I have seen well, I have not only seen. I have experienced growing a large audience and some of the challenges that come from appealing to a large audience and not really having a lot of intention intention about what I want to achieve now that I have said audience. I was recently interviewed in a podcast and I talked about the fact that when my wife and I started podcasting about the TV show Lost, by our third episode we had 27,000 subscribers. Now this is back in 2005. Most people didn't even know what a podcast was.

Cliff Ravenscraft (2:29): But because there were so few podcasters and there happened to be a few million early tech adopters and a few million people who were interested in a television show called Lost on ABC, there happened to be 27,000 people who found our Lost podcast by its third episode, along with some help of some other people who had already been podcasting about the TV show before and who had built and established something called the Lost Podcast Network, which was nothing more than a shared RSS feed on a blogger account. Anyway, that that's besides the point. But the reality is is that here I was, a guy in Northern Kentucky prior to my third podcast episode actually, prior to the first three podcast episodes, hardly anyone outside of Northern Kentucky within a 50 mile radius had ever heard my name before. Okay. I had about 300 people who read my blog, but that's an audience that I grew over the course of a decade.

Cliff Ravenscraft (3:39): Ten years of blogging daily for ten years and I grew an audience of 300 people. And those 300 people would check out the blog throughout the month. So to go from 300 people who are tuning in to what I have to say to immediately reaching 27,000 subscribers by my third podcast episode when, oh, I I had lots of room for improvement. Technically, audio production wise, and also emotional intelligence in all sorts of other areas that needed a lot of attention in my own personal and professional growth. I was not prepared for the feedback that I got from such a large audience.

Cliff Ravenscraft (4:35): And we started with 27,000 subscribers and it grew very quickly to over 60,000 subscribers. We launched a couple of other shows, all of them being in the entertainment industry with millions like related to television shows with millions of fans around the world. And we were tapping into hundreds of thousands of people who were tuning into our shows. And I was not prepared for the mass amount of opinions of how they would prefer that I do my podcast. I was not prepared for the criticism.

Cliff Ravenscraft (5:18): I was not prepared for the complaints. It seemed like there was nothing I could do to make everyone happy and of course today I say that phrase and I recognize there's nothing anyone can do ever to make everyone happy. That's why I lean today on something that's not really relevant to this particular topic but I will share with this. It's a quote I came across just maybe about eight or nine years ago from a guy named Howard Thurman. He says, don't ask what the world needs.

Cliff Ravenscraft (5:54): Ask what makes you come alive. Then go and do that because what the world really needs most are people who are fully alive. I wish I would have known that in the early days of my podcasting but I didn't. Instead, I had a massive audience. I had experienced unprecedented growth out of nowhere and it took me years to adjust to all of the issues that came from that.

Cliff Ravenscraft (6:26): And even though I did not get into podcasting so that I could earn income, I did not get into podcasting so that I could leave my career as an insurance agent. In fact, when I started podcasting, I loved my career as an insurance agent. And I don't wanna paint a picture that everything was all bad either. In the earliest days of my podcasting, there were people who very much resonated with who I was. As awkward and weird as I am and and quite frankly was even more weird then, quirky, and I had my rough edges, I still had people who loved what I was doing.

Cliff Ravenscraft (7:13): There were there were a percentage of that audience who truly understood my heart and they were able to see beyond the rough edges and they were encouragers. And not only were they encouragers but they received encouragement from me. They've got things for me that I didn't even know that I was capable of giving And I received letters, handwritten. I received postcards. I received thank you cards in the physical mail.

Cliff Ravenscraft (7:47): And I also received countless emails on an ongoing regular basis from people who said, Cliff, I love what you just shared in that podcast episode. This made a major difference in my life. I tucked every single one of those away in a very open, easy to see space. For all the physical stuff, I have this big, huge, gigantic wooden box that I keep by my side at all times to remind me of all of those people who really truly loved what I was doing. I have a label in my Gmail account or my Google email account that is called praise and encouragement.

Cliff Ravenscraft (8:34): And I have so many messages from around the world from twenty years of people who have shared just how much they appreciate the content that I've done over the years and even in those early days. But I will share with you that that it didn't quite keep me from wanting to throw in the towel. Right around, I think it was right around the fiftieth episode or so. I if I'm not mistaken, it might have been called that episode. But I just had a breakdown as we were recording the show.

Cliff Ravenscraft (9:10): I think we were broadcasting live or yeah. We were streaming live on Ustream, I think, at the time, and I I had just received like maybe two or three or four really overly critical pieces of feedback, people that really think that I had changed my approach to the way that I was podcasting. They were very upset, they were hurt, they were offended, and they just really laid into me about that. And me being the type of person that wants to please people at the time, not necessarily as much concerned about that today as I was back then, but back then I was really hurt by the idea that I hurt people, that there were people who were unhappy with the changes that I was making to the way that we were doing our show. It just and then we did this live show and we showed up and somebody pasted a comment that spoke negatively about my wife and I just read that and I'm like, you know what?

Cliff Ravenscraft (10:24): I'm done. I don't don't wanna do this anymore. And that was a very low moment for me. And there was a season just before that and there was a very long season after that. By the way, I did think that that might have been our last episode.

Cliff Ravenscraft (10:43): I published it. Thankfully, I had people who begged us. Begged me, Cliff, don't give this up, don't throw in the towel, don't listen to those people. And I'm like, that's easy for you to say. But we continued on.

Cliff Ravenscraft (11:00): But it was far longer than I would like to admit that I went on trying to please people and I tried to make everyone happy. And I'd I've not really talked a lot about that season in such a negative way because it's something that was quite painful at the time. And I don't think people really understand what happens when you're not ready or you don't have enough gosh, what's the word? Resiliency? There's just a lot of growth I think that might be required before you really open yourself up to that large of an audience.

Cliff Ravenscraft (11:52): Anyway, I think I've said enough about that. By the way, I'm recording this episode with no outline in front of me. I just have this idea that, you know, well first of all, I'm getting ready to go to Social Media Marketing World next week. I leave on Monday morning and I'm gonna be there all week doing a ninety minute workshop on podcasting. And because of that, I'm sitting here Thursday evening at 06:33PM, and this thing I told you you'll get an episode every Friday morning at 12:01AM.

Cliff Ravenscraft (12:25): And so here I am on a Thursday night again, recording another episode, and I don't wanna script this. I don't wanna outline it. I wanna share with you off the top of my head, and this thought of, you know, I really have a lot of powerful conversations today with people who come to me and they think that the answer to their podcasting and or business journey is getting in front of tens of thousands and even hundreds of thousands of people. When in reality, they don't yet have clarity of exactly who it is that most benefits from what they want to do. Now, keep in mind the people that I'm working with are on the entrepreneurial path.

Cliff Ravenscraft (13:13): These are people who are either business owners and or aspiring business owners. They are people who want to make a living from their coaching, their consulting, their speaking. Some of them wanna do online courses and they wanna write books and all these other things. So they think that, man, if I could just get in front of this large audience, then the numbers will just work out. I mean, with such a large audience, I'm obviously gonna make some money.

Cliff Ravenscraft (13:46): Well, I can tell you that when I started podcasting full time as a career and and actually started my business full time self employed, I had already been podcasting for two full years. I had produced hundreds and hundreds of podcast episodes by that time, and I had amassed an audience in the hundreds of thousands, all before I had my first day of full time self employment in January 2008. And you know what? I still ended up ending that first year in full time self employment with only $11,000 net income. Now the business made a lot more than that.

Cliff Ravenscraft (14:30): It paid for health insurance benefits. It paid for all of the overhead and expenses, a CPA, and all the other taxes and everything else relate, all of this stuff. Bought a bunch of business equipment, business expenses, things like that, but no personal income for the first nine months, and then the taxes on the final three months left us $11,000. Net personal income for an entire year. And that's with an audience of hundreds of thousands of people.

Cliff Ravenscraft (15:00): And that's an issue of having a large audience, but not having much clarity about who are you, who most benefits from what it is that you do, what is your core offer, What is the main thing that people buy from you? And who are the ones who get the biggest return on investment? Who are the ones who you most enjoy working with? What is the most profitable thing that you do when you are doing things for income inside of your business? For the first year of my business, I could not have answered any of those questions.

Cliff Ravenscraft (15:51): I thought that my heart was to serve anyone and everyone, and by golly, I'm doing that through keeping people entertained with our entertainment podcast and sponsors would be delighted to sponsor some of the content that's reaching such large audiences. And sure, I made a couple of thousand dollars a month from those things. I thought, man, there are gonna be so many people who are doing that that love this content. They'll be willing to pay for extra content and, you know, maybe we can have a plus membership and we paid, had people pay $10 a month for access to all of our content, and sure, we got to the place where that was generating $28,000 for the year. That by the way, that was not in the first year.

Cliff Ravenscraft (16:36): That was the sec second year, I think, that that was. But anyway, even that wasn't enough to generate the income I needed in my business. And then there was all the podcast coaching and consulting, and I was serving anyone and everyone, including a lot of people who simply did not have a budget for their equipment. They did not have a budget for consulting and I just wanted to be of service to anyone and everyone and I spent a lot of time and occasionally I came across somebody who the financial resources to buy some decent equipment. I made some decent profit and you know, I I I landed some clients here and there.

Cliff Ravenscraft (17:18): And that is a rough way to go and yet the average person who comes to me and says, Cliff, I've been told that you're somebody I can come to with what I'm most looking for and that is an audience growth strategy. And I'm like, well tell me about your business model. Who is your exact ideal client? What is your core offer? How do you get paid?

Cliff Ravenscraft (17:41): When somebody goes to your website, where do they go to click a button to give you money and what do they get in return for said money? And these people have no answer to those questions. And what they they what they attempt to do is to convince me that if they get a large enough audience, they'll figure out a way to earn income. And I'm like, I've seen this before. So growth is not universally good.

Cliff Ravenscraft (18:18): It can be good but it's not universally good. What I advocate is not audience growth. I advocate for audience alignment. I advocate for a responsive audience. Ones that when they hear you at the end of an episode saying, hey, if this resonated with you, why don't you send me an email?

Cliff Ravenscraft (18:42): I'd love to hear from you. I I actually read and respond to every email right now and I will continue to do that for as long as I can. I advocate for a more influential audience and I advocate for relational depth with your audience. I'll give you an example of what I mean by relational depth and it it's not directly tied to podcasting but I think this will translate well to give you an understanding my philosophy of what you can do with what some people would call or label a small audience. So I told you I'm getting ready to go to social media marketing world.

Cliff Ravenscraft (19:36): It's in Anaheim, California. I'm doing a ninety minute workshop on how to create a podcast. In fact, if give me a second here, will tell you the exact topic that I am doing, what the title is. It's called creating an influential podcast that captures attention and compounds trust. Now this room will have the ability to seat up to 400 people and there's no way for me to know right now how many people will be sitting in that room when that time comes.

Cliff Ravenscraft (20:17): Now the good news is that there will be only three other workshop or two other workshops I think. I think there are three concurrent workshops for each time block. So but the thing is is this is the workshop day, so only the people who pay for the ultimate all access pass get access to these workshops. So it's not the thousands of people who are going to be there for the overall conference for the other two days. There's a subsection of people who are the all access people who come to the workshop sessions.

Cliff Ravenscraft (20:50): But anyway, there could be as many as 400 people in the room, and at that point, they would actually close the room for so that there's no fire code violations. Right now, there are 86 people who are RSVP'd to attend this session. Now I'm getting that information from something called the Whova app. The Whova app is a standard conference industry app for attendees. A lot of conferences that I speak at use the Whova app.

Cliff Ravenscraft (21:26): It's pretty powerful in many ways and it's certainly powerful for what I'm talking about. Some people would think, man, I don't know that I would actually fly all the way across the country and invest all of my time, effort, and energy if I were only going to speak to 86 people. And that is exactly the mindset of the average person who comes to me and says, Cliff, I've got this podcast and it only has 86 downloads per episode. Let's just say that that's the number. And I'm like, wow, that's amazing.

Cliff Ravenscraft (22:07): And they're like, what are you talking about that's amazing? You mean 86 people show up in a room every single time you publish a new episode and talk about the things that are on your heart to share with them? That's amazing. They're like, no, Cliff. It's not amazing.

Cliff Ravenscraft (22:22): I need tens of thousands of people. And I'm like, tell me about your business model. What is this low ticket priced offer that you have that you need tens of thousands of people to buy from you? And they don't even have the low ticket offer. But they certainly don't have a high ticket offer.

Cliff Ravenscraft (22:41): They don't have a medium ticket. They don't have an offer is the problem. And so, anyway, going back to the hoova app, one of the things I love about it is that as a speaker, there is something called a speaker hub. And I can go and look at my talk and it says, hey, your talk is gonna be on Tuesday, April 28. It's gonna be from 4PM to 05:30PM.

Cliff Ravenscraft (23:08): You're in Room 252, and there are 86 people who are inside the Whova app who have gone through the agenda and clicked, oh, that looks like a good talk. I'm gonna RSVP and I'm letting it be known that I hope to attend that session. So obviously, not everyone who attends a conference like this even uses the conference app. And even those who use the conference app don't necessarily go in and take the time to use the app to plan out what sessions they're going to go to. And even if they do, even fewer actually click the RSVP button.

Cliff Ravenscraft (23:56): So I do know that at least 86 people have gone through and done all of the above. Which leads me to think that there may be more than 86 people who will attend. Now, just because somebody RSVPs to attend clicks the little button, they may actually go through and find two other sessions or another session that's on at the same time and r s v p to theirs as well and say I'll make a decision when the day when that day and time comes which of the two I'll go to. And there's some of these 86 that may not show up to my session. So it may not be as many as I have showing on the screen here.

Cliff Ravenscraft (24:35): But just to give you an example of what I mean by relational depth. Here's what I did. I went in and I'm gonna just click on here and hit send a personalized message. Let me go over to messages and I need to go back to when I started this. So let's, alrighty.

Cliff Ravenscraft (24:57): Here here we go. We might be able to pull it off right here. Okay. Here is a a template message I sent to all 86 people who RSVP'd. I said, Tara, I saw that you are a fellow Oh actually, this isn't this isn't the That is not That is a fellow speaker.

Cliff Ravenscraft (25:21): Actually, can tell you what I said to Tara if you wanna hear that. Tara, I saw that you are a fellow speaker at Social Media Marketing World and I just wanted to say that I hope your session goes well and that you have safe travels. Perhaps we'll connect at the speaker party. By the way, I sent that message to every speaker who is listed as a speaker inside of the Whova app. And let's see here.

Cliff Ravenscraft (25:45): I'm trying to see if I can find and I don't wanna edit, so I don't wanna I'm I'm just gonna keep narrating as I try to find somebody here. There we go. I'm honored that okay. So here's one. Jim, this is actually the one I sent to all 86 people who hit that RSVP button.

Cliff Ravenscraft (26:05): Jim, I'm honored that you have RSVP'd to attend my session. I hope that we get a chance to connect at pod oh, this is Podfest. So the Whova app is going all the way back to some other ones. Man, this is okay. I could probably use some editing on this.

Cliff Ravenscraft (26:25): I'm not gonna edit this podcast. Here's one though. I know for a fact that this is the one for social media marketing world. I've got it right. I promise you this time.

Cliff Ravenscraft (26:34): Alex, I saw that you're planning to attend my workshop on podcasting. I wanted to say I'm honored you'll be there. Is there anything specific you'd love for me to cover that would make the session especially valuable for you. Now imagine, I sent that message to all 86 people, and one of the things that I did is I created a Notion document. And every single person I sent that to, I put a numbered list.

Cliff Ravenscraft (27:07): So for example, I know that Abigail Knight, Alex Krause, Alisa Pardini, Amit Grover, Anne Driscoll, Archibald Saki, Ashley Solis, Ashley Voss, Autumn Miller, Barry Wellston, Beatrice Lopez, Brantz Arnold, Brand and I could go on. I know all 86 names. They are all inside of a Notion document. I manually typed in their names and then every single time one of those people, one of the 86 people wrote back, I would write down what they said. For example, it says, hey Cliff, thanks for reaching out.

Cliff Ravenscraft (27:47): I just launched a podcast for my company and they put a this person put a link to their YouTube channel. I'm running the whole deal, planning, outreach, hosting, producing, editing, and distribution. So I'm trying to soak up as much value as I can. Not one or two specifics, just hoping to learn and absorb how others are handling the various aspects of podcasting, looking forward to meeting. And I responded to him and basically, we've begun a conversation.

Cliff Ravenscraft (28:17): Now because a conversation has formed, I've already taken Barry and I've put him in my CRM as a person, and I've already logged the beginning of that conversation and any dialogue we continue to have, I can see that he has an entry in my CRM. He's not just a name as a list, but there's a little button that his name is actually a tag that takes me directly into his CRM entry. And Barry and I, every conversation we have from this point forward is a tracked CRM, client relationship management software is now tracking that. Another person responded and said that I currently serve as communications and media director for such and such church. It's a growing church of over 1,200 people.

Cliff Ravenscraft (29:09): And basically she shares exactly what it is that she's most hoping to get as it relates to podcasting. Another person says, thank you Cliff so much. I'd love to learn more about internal processes of owning a podcast. So I'm looking for how do I do my episode outlines? How do I vet great guests?

Cliff Ravenscraft (29:30): I'd love to know about podcast flow, keeping room for questions and detailed answers. I'd love to know about intro and outro music. Now guess what? I've already had an ongoing conversation with that individual. So I've got probably about half of the people already who have RSVP'd, I already have a response from them telling me exactly what they're most hoping to get out of my talk.

Cliff Ravenscraft (30:00): And because of the back and forth, each time we exchange a message back and forth and I ask a deeper question, our relationship is deeper. The idea is that I hope to get into that room on Tuesday and I will already know the names and several personal details and I have a very clear picture of what 40 or 50 of the people who are in that room, in that room, I will know them. Now I may not yet have a face associated to the name but what I do know is that I will go in and I will introduce myself before I got thirty minutes before my talk, in between the talk before me and mine. And I will go up and introduce myself. And they will tell me their name.

Cliff Ravenscraft (30:56): And some of them I will remember off of the top of my head personal details. And you wanna know how that's gonna happen? It's because on my flight to California, California, you like that? On my flight to California, I'm going to study this list, this Notion document. I'm going to go in and rehearse what are the conversations I've had.

Cliff Ravenscraft (31:22): Who are the people? What memory mnemonic techniques can I use to associate a person's name to a person's details so that I can actually, in the moment when I go up and introduce myself and they tell me their name and I'm like, oh, you and I were chatting about fill in the blank? This is the level of relational depth that is possible for me as a speaker who sees that 86 people have RSVP'd for my thing. Now, do you think most speakers go through this, go to this link to build a relationship with that many people these apps? The answer is no.

Cliff Ravenscraft (32:10): Most don't. But that's okay. I'm not concerned about what others do. I am concerned about what I do. You see, I'm at a place where if just let's just say that by the time this weekend is over, by the way, the app is getting more and more active as we are now getting closer, I would say that by the end of this weekend, the app will probably show me that a 150 to 200 people are registered or RSVP'd.

Cliff Ravenscraft (32:47): I will have conversations that people meaning that I'm gonna send every single one of them the template and hey, is there anything specific you'd like me to cover? I will have conversations with those who have responded back to me. It'll probably be about a 100 people. And so out of that 100 people, let's just say 30 people become a client of mine within the next twelve months. The average price is gonna be $15,000.

Cliff Ravenscraft (33:19): Let's just say that. So 30 people times $15,000, that's gonna be $450,000 of value that I will earn from being a speaker in this room. That's if only I engage with at at such a level that 30 of them, only 30, so out of let's just say let's just say there's gonna be 200 people in the room. If 30 of those people become a client for my core offer of the Next Level Mastermind for $15,000, that's $450,000 I'll earn before the end of this year because of what I'm doing. Do you see how I don't need to be I I don't need to be in the room where I'm speaking to the 3,000, 4,000 people who are attending the event.

Cliff Ravenscraft (34:16): I can pull away $450,000 in revenue from 30 people who are in my audience of 200. Do you see what I'm talking about? Now do you see how I can take this away from Social Media Marketing World, away from that workshop, and do you see how this equally can apply and be taken right over to your podcast that has 200 subscribers? 200 downloads per episode. The the thing is is do you know who that see the I'm actually having these conversations and I told you that approximately a 100 people are going to reply to me.

Cliff Ravenscraft (35:01): Not everyone is my ideal client avatar. Not everyone's full time self employed. Not everyone is going to want to be a part of a mastermind group. However, the 30 that I'm referring to are going to be the ones that as I'm having conversations and I'm asking deeper questions, I'm actually going to figure out which ones out of these 100 people that I'm connecting with, messaging back and forth, and then eventually we're gonna transition into face to face conversations. Out of the 100 people that I've been actively engaging with, who are the 30 who are a perfect fit for the Next Level Mastermind?

Cliff Ravenscraft (35:44): Who are exactly at the place in their business journey where being a part of the Next Level Mastermind makes the most sense? I'm going to speak on stage and speak to those people and answer those types of questions. I will the stuff that I share will be relevant to those who are not. In fact, there are several people who are not in my target audience who've told me what they're hoping to get out of my talk that are not included in my talk that I actually am now going to include in my talk so that I actually am reaching that broader audience. But I will tell you, the people who are going to resonate the most, the people who are gonna be like lining up to speak to me at the end of my talk, they're gonna be these 30 people.

Cliff Ravenscraft (36:30): That's what I That that is the design that I am creating with the content that I'll be speaking on the stage and it's the same way I design the content when I publish a podcast episode. I am speaking specifically to a target audience and saying things and speaking things that would resonate at the deepest level for those who are the perfect fit for my core offer. And so when I suggest, hey, would you like to hear my audience reduction strategy? And after I explain to them what I mean, we begin talking. I often will ask, well first of all, how much money are you currently generating in your business?

Cliff Ravenscraft (37:17): And they typically tell me this is what I'm currently generating on a monthly basis, okay. How much do you want to be generating in your business? And they tell me that what that number is, and I'm like, okay, what are your offers? And many times, you know, they have a lack of clarity. They have they're all over the place.

Cliff Ravenscraft (37:34): I'm like, what out of all of those offers, what's most profitable, and what is the one where people seem to be the happiest and you with what they've got and you love serving them the most? And we go there and I'm like, so why not make that your core offer? Why not why not begin to well, because Cliff, here's the thing you don't understand. I really wanna be able to be of service to everyone. Well, if you are going to be a service to everyone, your message softens.

Cliff Ravenscraft (38:06): See, when you go for broad appeal, you're diluting your message. It it it there's no clarity about who you are, what you offer, what you do, how you help. You're you're trying to make it so broadly appealing to such a wide audience that those who would actually attach themselves and say, oh my gosh, he's speaking to me, they they can't have that experience because you're not speaking clearly enough. Instead, what you'll have is you'll end up with the wrong listeners. These are the people who will consume your content, they'll love it, but they're gonna pull you in all sorts of other directions.

Cliff Ravenscraft (38:54): It's like, hey, do you have this? Do you have this? Hey, do you think you could create this? And and oftentimes, people get really attracted. It's like, that is something I could offer.

Cliff Ravenscraft (39:04): And you know what? There seems to be a lot of people out there who really want this. And oftentimes those people who will ask you for this and it's like, man, I wish you had this. They're not the same people who when you make it available are actually gonna put money in your bank account. Ask me how I know.

Cliff Ravenscraft (39:22): So there is a hidden cost that is associated with growing your audience with the wrong listeners. When you get very clear about exactly who your ideal client avatar is, your ICA, and you get very clear what your core offer is, You have the ability for your content to become so focused on that person and you will have such clarity about how to speak about that offer that every word you say and every piece of content becomes a filter in such that the right people who your content is meant to reach will self select and say that's me. This is what I have been looking for. This is the offer to fill the need for which I have been seeking. I didn't even know that I was seeking this until I heard this, but that is me.

Cliff Ravenscraft (40:39): And if this is done effectively enough, you actually will repel people who don't resonate with it. Eventually, you're speaking so clearly to a specific audience, often times some of those who are not in that audience will say, you know, this just isn't hitting as much as it used to. I'm not resonating with this content in the way that I used to. This content seems to have shifted and some of those people will fade away. This is why I call it my audience reduction strategy.

Cliff Ravenscraft (41:22): It's not that you're chasing people away, it's just that people will fall away the more clear you get. But that's okay. The people who find you, are your exact client avatar, who want your exact core offer, they're going to be like glue to every episode. And things get really exciting if your avatar happens to be influencers. This is one of my super secret weapons.

Cliff Ravenscraft (41:54): I I don't know that I've talked about this enough, but one of the things that I love about my exact ideal client avatar is I see myself not as a big massive influencer. That's not my dream. It was my dream at one point, And there was a time when I had reached that status. It wasn't necessarily profitable or fulfilling for me at the time. Now chances are, technically speaking, I could probably see myself profiting more today after all of the personal growth and development I've had over the years.

Cliff Ravenscraft (42:28): But, with all of that being said, I've actually come to love being the influencer of the influencers. I love influencing the influencers. You see, I'd rather have 30 or 40 people who are listening to every single episode of my podcast where they are constantly tuning in and saying, wow, that's a great thought. I love that perspective. And then all of a sudden, they walk away, they chew on that, they journal about it, and and you know what they do?

Cliff Ravenscraft (43:07): They end up writing their next email newsletter, or they actually publish a book that's a New York Times bestseller, or they go to their podcast that has tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of subscribers, and you know what they do? They say, was listening to Cliff Ravenscraf the other day and he said something profound. By the way, if you don't know Cliff Ravenscraf, you can find him. He's the podcast answer man. He's helped so many people with podcasting.

Cliff Ravenscraft (43:33): Today, he does business strategy and mindset coaching. He's a mastermind group facilitator, awesome guy. Podcastanswerman.com, cliffravenscraft.com. But anyway, here's what Cliff said and this is what it got me to thinking and this is how it's actually shifted how I'm going to move forward. That happens all the time.

Cliff Ravenscraft (43:55): I don't need to reach tens of thousands of people with any of my podcasts these days. I'm more now I have more than 30 to 50 people who are downloading my shows and more than 30 to 50 people who are in my ideal client avatar. But I gotta tell you, I do have about 30 to 50 who are absolute influencers to hundreds of thousands of people, and that is And the depth of relationship I have with those people is deeper than than what most people could imagine that I have. It it is such a gift. It is such a blessing.

Cliff Ravenscraft (44:35): And it's not because I intentionally set out to have those relationships. The reason why I have the level of relational depth with these influencers who influence hundreds of thousands of people, it is absolutely in every single case that they have heard from thousands of their people about the level of service that I'm willing to go in to serve people when I'm connecting. I want you to imagine how many people who are in that 86 people in the Whova app. I don't know if they work for Michael Stelzner. I don't know if they're volunteers at the conference.

Cliff Ravenscraft (45:20): I don't know if they're staff members. I don't I'm just doing this for everyone. And guess what? You if if you do this, and this isn't the first time I've done this, what I'm saying is word gets round. People start talking.

Cliff Ravenscraft (45:35): And and I don't do this so that people will. That's the whole crazy thing. This is about optimizing for relational depth. It is optimizing for an influential audience. It is optimizing for a responsive audience who connects with what you're saying so much that they're willing to respond to a conduct called action.

Cliff Ravenscraft (45:58): It is optimizing for an aligned audience. And the more you optimize for that, chances are if you already have an audience and you're not quite satisfied with the growth that you're having, if you start optimizing for these things, this strategy might just cause you to see a reduction in the size of your podcast, at least for a while. And it might be the thing you end up thanking me for down the road. Hey, if this podcast episode has resonated with you, my email address is cliff@cliffravenscraft.com. And if you're gonna be at Social Media Marketing World in Anaheim, California next week, I hope to see you there.

Cliff Ravenscraft (46:43): And if you haven't done so already, hit that RSVP button for my talk. I look forward to engaging with you either in the Whova app, at the event, or in post event follow ups. Until next time, I encourage you to take everything you do to the next level. Podcast, it's a man.