More Content Wasn’t the Answer
Patrick LaRose could save a life.
He could manage multiple critical patients.
He could work with ventilators beeping, alarms sounding, families panicking, and a shift moving faster than his body could keep up with.
Then he started a coaching business.
And in our first private coaching session, he told me:
“I was dying on the vine.”
He had the experience - more than 40 years as a nurse.
He had the credentials, the Substack, a new podcast.
He was showing up consistently.
And still, his business was not moving the way he needed it to move.
When things aren’t working, it’s easy to blame the microphone, the tech, the platform, or the algorithm.
Or the fact that you have not recorded enough episodes yet.
Patrick’s problem was not production.
It was positioning.
People could hear him.
They just could not place him.
They could not instantly say, “That is for me.”
If your listener cannot recognize himself inside your message, your podcast will become a content chore instead of a referral engine.
That is the work Patrick and I did in three private sessions, combined with Patrick’s commitment and ongoing engagement inside the paid tiers of the Studio.
Immediately after Patrick let go of the stronger entrepreneurial desire to serve everyone and he embraced the nursing niche, his vanilla notes lingo stopped and Patrick stepped into his blue ocean territory. Check out this note as an example.
A few weeks later?
New podcast direction. More downloads. New subscribers.
His first paid subscriber plus a sale on Gumroad with a bonus tip added by a client who trusts the work he does because she now understands what he does!
When people understand you are talking to them, they talk back. They connect. They comment. They DM you. They buy from you.
That’s the converting podcast work we do in the Studio. Come inside as a free or paid subscriber.
Takeaway 1: Your podcast needs a person, not a category
When Patrick first described his work, he talked about transitions.
Balance.
Feeling stuck.
Finding purpose.
Feeling alive again.
All of that sounds nice.
But that’s not enough to stop the scroll.
When you make your audience do the work to answer:
» “Is this for me?”
» “Does he understand my life?”
» “Would he know what to do with someone like me?”
Know what they’ll do instead of working to figure out what you do?
They’ll keep scrolling buy. The lack of specificity negatively impacts your referability. When you are not memorable - as in you don’t stand out above the crowded marketplace, you are not referable). That is why I told him:
“Patrick, I can’t recommend you.”
That critical feedback - a necessary part of coaching - isn’t easy to receive.
Patrick admitted that during our Live.
Here’s what I saw: Patrick had spent more than four decades in nursing. He had taught nurses. Led nurses. Worked beside nurses. Lived the impossible shifts, the family responsibilities, the emotional residue, the pressure of staying composed when everything around him was asking too much.
But nursing had not been leading the message.
So I asked him:
“Why aren’t you serving nurses?”
That question surprised him. Patrick shared no one else called him out on that. And just like you and I would do when our immediate response it to protect our work, Patrick fought the challenge.
We all want to change the world. We want to help so many people. That’s why choosing a person feels risky when you are trying to make a business work.
You think, “If I name one group, everyone else will leave.”
But when Patrick decided to say yes to his genius zone, clarity rushed in.
CLARITY ALWAYS WINS.
CLARITY ALWAYS GIVES MOMENTUM.
CLARITY ALWAYS HELP YOU CREATE THE NEXT STEP.
Try this with your podcast
Open your podcast description, your Substack bio, or your last three episode titles.
Evaluate:
Could this belong to almost anyone in my industry?
Would my best listener know I am talking to them in the first five seconds?
Am I naming a real person with a real problem, or am I describing a broad category?
If someone wanted to refer me, would they know what I do?
If you don’t like your answers, it’s likely your messaging is not strong enough to turn your Substack notes and Podcast episodes into clients.
Note: If you’re struggling talking about what you do without boring your audience to tears, listen to Issue #40 of the Mic Drop Mastery Newsletterso you can stop explaining and turn your conversations into referrals and clients.
Takeaway 2: Your listener should feel the scene before you explain the point
Patrick opened our Live by describing a nurse after a brutal shift.
She has run from one priority to another.
She did not eat.
She did not drink enough water.
She did not have time to use the bathroom.
She gets to her car and has to take a breath before she can drive home.
Then she gets home and sits in the driveway.
Just long enough for the adrenaline to drop.
Inside the house, the second shift is waiting.
Dinner.
Laundry.
Kids.
A family that needs her.
A life that never pauses when the hospital takes everything she has that day.
That is what Patrick does now. Instead of: “I help nurses find balance.” Patrick puts the nurse back in her own car.
That is the difference between information and positioning.
A podcast that only gives information rarely sells anything. A podcast that positions the host as the logical next step to work with converts by building intimacy (Trust), connects with clients (Leverage) and clearly shares their offers confidently (Conversion).
USE CODE: SUBSTACKTLC to save 50%, Substacker!
Your ideal client doesn’t press play to read a bullet point on a sales page.
You are 18 inches from your client's heart every time they listen to your podcast. If you waste that with vague language, you lose the very thing podcasting does best.
Try this with your next episode
Before you record, write the real-life moment your listener is in.
Not the topic. The moment.
For Patrick, it is not “nurse burnout.”
It is the nurse sitting in the driveway trying to become human again before walking through the door.
For you, it may be:
The consultant staring at a calendar full of calls, a notebook full of ideas, and thinking, “Why does my business still feel harder than it should?”
The coach refreshing her podcast stats for the fifth time today while telling herself she’s “just checking data.” (We both know that’s not why she’s there.)
The expert with 80 episodes published, plenty of content created, and still wondering, “Why aren’t the right people raising their hand?”
Let the listener feel the scene. Then teach. Then give your CTAs that line up with the work you’re sharing in that episode.
Become a Paid Subscriber in the Studio to create scenes that convert.
Takeaway 3: Your podcast title has a very important job to do for your audience.
Patrick’s podcast used to be called From Free to Fine.
During the Live, I asked people what that meant.
No one said, NURSING.
Not knowing what a Podcast or Publication stands for - that’s the telltale sign your title is not working.
Titles help the right person understand why the show exists.
Now Patrick’s podcast is called The Second Shift.
You feel that one, especially if you are a nurse.
The title carries the world of the listener. The hospital shift ends. The emotional shift does not. The family shift begins.
The identity shift is underneath all of it.
That is strong positioning.
Not because it is clever.
Because it is recognizable.
When Patrick and I searched Apple Podcasts, there were other shows with similar names. That meant the artwork, subtitle, and description had to work harder.
So we tightened the visual identity. We talked about the podcast art at thumbnail size.
We looked at whether people could read it. We worked through language that made the promise sharper.
Know this: Your podcast is not only competing when someone presses play.
It is competing before that. In the feed. In search. On your Substack page. In a recommendation. In a DM when someone shares the link.
If your show name, art, and description make people work too hard, they will never press play.
Try this with your show
Look at your podcast title and cover art on your phone.
Not your laptop.
Your phone.
Examine:
How quickly can I read it fast?
What does the title reveal about why this exists?
How does the artwork match the emotional world of the show?
Would a stranger understand the podcast promise immediately?
How does the show name create curiosity for my ideal clients?
Then read your podcast description out loud. If it sounds like a bio, rewrite it. If it sounds like every other show in your space, you have work to do.
Become a Paid Subscriber to get feedbcak on your podcast art - and strategy that converts
Takeaway 4: Patrick did not want to sound salesy. No one wants to sound salesy…
He said it more than once. He is a nurse, a coach, someone who values relationships. He doesn’t want to sell.
Patrick did not want to become the guy shouting, “Hire me,” from every corner of the internet.
I understand that.
I also know what happens when podcasters avoid giving Calls To Action that are the next logical step to solve the pain their clients have right now.
No CTAs…and Bad CTAS leave your audience in a lurch. And that, sweet Podstacker, kills your conversions.
Inside the Studio, I teach Podcast TLC:
Trust.
Leverage.
Conversion.
Patrick took that and started using it as a filter for every episode.
How does the opening establish trust?
How can he leverage his lived experience and his audience’s pain points?
What CTA is the right next step and am I sharing it with my audience?
That changed how he wrote, recorded, and issued CTAs.
He also added some pretty cool music - more on that in this live.
When Patrick made the nurse the center of the story in a recent episode he completely redid, that episode became one of his strongest.
Nearly 300 views.
More than 200 downloads.
Three new subscribers.
Then came his first paid subscriber.
Then a Gumroad conversion, with a tip!
Try this with your next episode
Before you record, answer three questions:
What does my listener need to trust before they can keep listening?
What part of my experience helps them feel less alone or more capable?
What is the cleanest next step when this episode hits home?
If your podcast is part of your business, the listener should never have to wonder how to work with you.
What changed for Patrick
Patrick did not become more qualified in three sessions.
He was already qualified.
He did not need me to give him nursing experience.
He had more than 40 years of it.
What changed was the way his experience showed up.
Patrick’s podcast stopped sounding like his personal memoir.
His Notes stopped sounding like they could belong to anyone.
Plus, Patrick’s bio started speaking to the nurse who can calm a family, catch a mistake, and keep moving on three hours of sleep, but is one more “you are so strong” away from coming undone.
His content became easier for him to create because he was no longer creating from thin air.
He was creating from memory.
From lived experience.
From the car after shift.
From the telemetry unit.
From the second shift.
You can experience this deep level of clarity that converts, too. Join the Studio Paid Tiers.
If your podcast is not creating conversations
You likely do not need more episodes added to your rotation.
You don’t need a new microphone.
You may not need a full rebrand.
But, you do need to answer the question Patrick had to answer:
Who is this really for?
Not in theory.
Not in a demographic spreadsheet.
In real life.
Who is sitting in the car?
Who is refreshing the stats?
Who is wondering if the business is ever going to work?
Who is listening to your podcast while trying to decide whether you understand enough to help?
That is where your next episode begins.
And that is why I built the Substack Podcast Studio - to combat the Podcaster Burnout aka Podfade.
Podcasters burn out because they keep making episodes that have no clear job.
Inside the Studio, we work on the message, the show, the listener, the offer, and the path between them.
And when private coaching gets added to that?
You get clarity, confidence and conversions with your episodes.
If you are ready for your podcast to become recognizable to the people you are here to serve, come inside the Studio.
