There’s this one line from a blog post by writing educator David Perell that I’ve thought about almost every day since I first read it several years ago.
“Your work is done when it looks so simple that the consumer thinks they could have done it, which means they won’t appreciate how hard you worked.”
David refers to this as “hiding your work”.
In the post, David is talking specifically about the craft of writing.
About how a short, punchy, 750-word essay that changes the way the reader thinks about a topic is probably the result of months of ruminating on the topic and may have started as a 4,000 word first draft.
But the concept of hiding your work applies to every aspect of craft, marketing, and business.
And it’s the reason why deconstructing and emulating the public-facing tactics of successful creators never leads to the same results.
Because while the tactics play a role, they’re enabled, guided, and animated by the behind-the-scenes work that is hidden from public view.
From my experience befriending and working with many of these creators, this hidden work tends to cluster around a handful of practices and activities that show up again and again.
So if you feel like you’re doing all the right things but aren’t seeing the results, it’s worth digging into these hidden practices.
Successful Podcasters Conduct Audience Conversations
There is a near-direct correlation between success (in terms of both audience growth & revenue) and the number of 1:1 conversations a creator or founder has had with their audience (and market more broadly).
It’s not uncommon for mega-successful creators to have racked up hundreds of audience, customer, and market research clarity calls.
When you think about it, after that many conversations, how could they not have an advantage when it comes to clarity, resonance, and relevance over a creator who’s basing every decision on their gut?
Successful Podcasters Do Non-Scalable Marketing
Ask almost any big indie podcast how they grew their show and you’ll hear some version of the following:
“I basically collected one listener at a time through 1:1 private DMs and community forum discussions.”
I’ve frequently heard podcasters describe this (typically years-long) process with terms like “hand-to-hand combat” or “the grind”.
I refer to it as Legwork Marketing.
Regardless of what you call it, it’s the most (perhaps even only) effective, predictable form of early-stage seed marketing there is.
The fact that it takes place primarily in private DMs and conversations, however, means most aspiring podcasters have no idea it’s happening, or that they should be doing it as well.
Successful Podcasters Obsess Over Competitor Research
Successful creators almost always have an intimate awareness of who and what they’re competing against.
They listen to their competitors’ shows, read their newsletters, follow (and engage with) them on social.
Most likely, they’re also friends and collaborators with many of them.
As a result, they have a keen understanding of the landscape they’re operating in and their place within it.
They know each of their competitors’ strengths, weaknesses, positioning, value propositions, and more, which allows them to make informed, strategic decisions about how they can create a show and a brand that stands out and offers something compellingly different.
Yes, researching your competitors is uncomfortable.
But one of the differences between professionals and amateurs is the willingness to what’s necessary despite the discomfort.
Successful Podcasters Consume An Insane Amount of Content
Podcasts, books, newsletters, blogs, movies, TV, tactics, strategies, ideas, stories, philosophies, and more.
Successful creators tend to consume voraciously and compulsively across a wide—often eclectic—swath of mediums, topics, and genres.
Not only do they consume content, but they’re constantly analyzing and deconstructing what makes it work… or not.
The practical result of this work is two-fold:
- They have a rich stew of ideas and perspectives that have a way of combining and filtering down into original, unexpected, and compelling ideas of their own.
- They develop a keen sense of taste that makes their work more accessible, resonant, and impactful.
Successful Podcasters Write. A Lot.
At a recent talk, I shared an offhand comment about how I spend 4 hours every day writing.
Oddly, that comment was the number one thing people mentioned after the talk and throughout the rest of the conference.
Typically, they would tell me not that they were fellow writers… but that their boss or mentor or someone else they look up to has the same practice.
One of those people is a friend of mine who works for one of the biggest podcasters and entrepreneurs in the world. He shared that this creator credits their writing as being the entire reason they could show up on both their podcast as well as guest on others and riff articulately and compellingly at length.
The fact is that successful creators are good at structuring ideas.
And writing is the singular best practice to improve your ability to structure your thinking and ideas.
For some, this writing comes in the form of publically shareable content such as a blog, newsletter, essay, or script.
For others, their writing is entirely personal, contained to a journal or notebook.
Regardless of the form it takes, writing is one of the most ubiquitous—and impactful—forms of hidden work that elevates everything from your podcast to your social content to your sales copy, emails, ads, teaching, facilitation, public speaking, and more.
Successful Podcasters Seek Out Uncomfortable Feedback
“Don’t worry about hurting my feelings. That’s my problem. Just tell me your most brutally honest opinion about what’s wrong with this and how I could make it better.”
This sentiment is embodied by nearly every highly successful creator I’ve worked with.
And it’s in direct opposition to the timid, fragile, avoidant approach to feedback embodied by hosts that seem to be perpetually stuck.
It’s not just the sentiment, however.
It’s the frequency (ie. constantly) with which successful creators seek out this type of unvarnished, tear-my-work-apart feedback on every aspect of their work, from content, to packaging, to structure, business model, copy, strategy, and more.
The result is that their work improves rapidly, achieving in weeks what a feedback-averse creator might take years to achieve.
While they’re constantly looking for honest feedback, however, they also have a well-developed sense of what type of feedback to listen to (and from whom) and what to ignore.
Successful Podcasters Have Back Channel Conversations & Support Groups
Almost without exception, creators and founders at the top of their spaces have one or more small, private groups of trusted peers with whom they have a steady, ongoing background conversation related to their work.
This might consist of a group text thread in WhatsApp, Slack, or Telegram, regular mastermind sessions over Zoom, in-person meetups, or all of the above.
The point is to have a small, trusted group of other creators with similar goals who intimately understand you, your content, and your business—and can thus provide nuanced feedback, challenge your thinking, and help you improve.
Successful Podcasters Overindex on Idea & Episode Development Time
It probably shouldn’t surprise me, but I’m still always shocked when a podcaster tells me that—without doing anything else differently—their numbers went up when they started putting more effort into episode prep and development.
In fact, they often cite it as the number one thing that grew their show.
The work required to make your show the best it can be will differ based on your show concept.
But some of the most common hidden developmental work includes:
- Structure & flow planning — Probably the most important valuable place to spend more time for every show
- Scripting the intro hook
- Question sequencing and phrasing
- Sourcing relevant anecdotes, stories, examples, and data
Not every show has the ability to spend 20—or even 5 hours on pre-production.
But there’s a good chance that spending one hour more than you currently are will result in a noticeably better show that retains more listeners and grows your audience.
If, on the other hand, your goal is to put in as little work as possible, you should expect as little results as possible.
Successful Podcasters Spend More Time Titling Their Episodes
Episode titling could fall into the idea development category. But given the amount of time and energy top creators dedicate to the craft, it deserves an entry of its own.
As a medium, podcasting is particularly susceptible to unintentional clickbait.
Unintentionally though it may be, however, these types of titles have the same result as conventional clickbait: Turning off and driving away listeners—perhaps forever.
In short: Titles are the gatekeepers to your episodes. If the title doesn’t pull someone in, they’re never going to hear the content.
As such, top creators spend a disproportionate amount of time on their episode titles.
Unlike most struggling podcasters, top creators start the titling process at the idea development stage, long before they’ve even committed to an episode, let alone recorded it.
If an idea can’t be titled in a compelling, clickable way, there’s no point recording it the thinking goes.
What’s more, since the title sets the frame for the listener’s expectations about the episode, the title can significantly impact the direction, structure, and flow of the episode itself.
It’s not uncommon for top creators to generate dozens of title ideas, along with multiple different ways of framing the topic and then whittling the list down.
At the top levels, titling alone is an hours-long process, likely carried out over days.
And again, while you might not have the ability to spend that much time on your titles, spending any amount of time more than you currently are will only help your show.
👉 Related: The SHARP Episode Titleing Framework
Successful Podcasters Experiment (Constantly)
While it’s not always obvious, top creators are constantly experimenting.
With their show format & structure.
With their content strategy.
With their offers.
With their promotion.
With their creative process.
And with nearly every other aspect of their business.
Some experiments are big bets while others are small tweaks and adjustments that add up to big improvements over time.
Regardless, most of these experiments fall flat.
That’s to be expected.
These creators know, however, that the more tweaking, the more testing, the more experimenting they do, the more often they’re going to land on something that works that they can double down on.
Then, they repeat the process.
Successful Podcasters Develop Their Craft
Almost without exception, top creators obsess over the craft of their work.
This obsession with craft is both deep and wide.
It’s rare to meet a truly great podcaster who doesn’t have above-average technical proficiency when it comes to recording, editing, and production.
Nor a deep well of knowledge about skills as varied as hooks, storytelling, interviewing, design, copywriting, marketing, product development, and more.
All of this, of course, is in addition to their considerable knowledge of their topic itself.
In short: If it touches their business, deep down, they want to master it.
And while they recognize that they’ll never achieve true mastery of all these aspects of their craft, they’ve achieved the feat for several.
And chances are, they’re still just getting started.
Successful Podcasters Create Space to Let Ideas Flow
It feels like a luxury. Or an inefficient use of time.
But talk with top creators and you’ll notice an often zealous adherence to spending time unplugged from screens, content, and stimulus.
Whether it’s long walks or workout sessions without listening to a podcast, dedicated (and regular) time set aside for stream-of-consciousness journalling, or phone & TV free evenings and weekends, this input-free white space creates space for ideas to percolate, combine, mutate, and bubble up to the surface of their consciousness.
It’s not that they’re less busy than any of the rest of us.
In fact, they almost certainly have more demands of their time and attention.
What they understand, however, is that the thing that has gotten them to where they are—and the thing that will take them further—is developing and tuning into their own voice, perspective, and ideas rather than those of others.
Unfortunately, these are all too easy to drown out, which is why regular space must be made and protected to give them space to surface.
Successful Podcasters Spend More Time Working On The Thing
Lastly, and perhaps most crucially, creators who break through have generally spent more time working.
On their craft, their show, their business, and themselves.
This work likely measures in years (if not decades) and encompasses a long and wide list of failed projects (and perhaps a few minor wins) that taught them the hard lessons that paved the way for their current success.
It’s no mistake that so many successful indie creators have professional backgrounds in TV, film, advertising, publishing, marketing, writing, radio, journalism, and other creative fields.
While those careers may not have been directly related to podcasting, they enabled them to spend years of their life developing the skills, mental models, and distinctive points of view that enabled them to hit the ground running with their shows.
Of course, that’s not to say you need to have had a previous career in a creative field to succeed in podcasting.
But at some point, you do need to put in the time, whether that’s on a single show or—more likely—a suite of projects.
👉 Related: How Long It Takes to Grow a 10k dl/ep Podcast
Successful Podcasters Take It Slow & Steady
At first glance, this list is overwhelming.
If you barely have the time to ship your episodes on schedule as is, how are you supposed to add all the practices detailed here?
The answer is, you’re not.
At least not all at once.
Everyone I know who embodies these practices (including myself) built them up and incorporated them into their process slowly over time—usually years—and usually after facing a lot of internal resistance and avoidance.
In addition, they generally approach them in phases.
It’s not uncommon for a creator to make a sprint goal of having 25 or 50 audience conversations in a month, and then do a couple a month on an ongoing basis.
Or to do a similar sprint around competitor research, perhaps dedicating a week—or even just one full day—to it, and then moving into maintenance mode after that.
That said, there’s no escaping the fact that if you want to succeed as a creator, founder, or marketer, all of these practices—more than the marketing tactics and strategies—are the things that will get you there.
In fact, do them for long enough and success is pretty much inevitable, with the tactics and strategies taking care of themselves.
