Long before I worked in podcasting, I was the person listening.

I was interested in business and entrepreneurship before I had my own business, but I didn’t really have people around me who were interested in the same things. I didn’t have business owners in my circle showing me what that life could look like or how you actually went about creating something for yourself.

So I listened to podcasts.

I learnt a LOT from them. But looking back now, I think the bigger thing they gave me was exposure to ideas and possibilities I wasn’t getting anywhere else. I was hearing from people who had built businesses, made mistakes, figured things out and were openly talking about all of it.

Eventually, I started thinking maybe I could do it too.

And I did.

I’ve now had my business for around a decade. At the time I started it, my partner, now husband, was in the military and travelled a lot, so being able to work flexibly and from anywhere was important to me. Later, that same business gave me the flexibility to have our kids, continue providing financially and still be present with them in a way that mattered to me.

Would I have eventually started a business without those podcasts? Knowing my brain, probably.

But they opened me up to those ideas earlier and gave me the confidence to actually have a crack at it when I did.

That’s what I mean when I talk about the ripple effect of podcasting.

Those hosts will probably never know the impact their podcasts had on me. They don’t know that I was listening and learning from them before I had my own business, or that some of those conversations played a part in giving me the confidence to start one.

And they definitely don’t know everything that came after that decision.

Starting my business changed what was possible for me and my family. Then through that business, I’ve worked with people who have gone on to help other people through their businesses. I’ve helped put podcasts into the world that have reached their own listeners, helped people, started conversations and led to opportunities. Those people then take whatever they’ve learnt or experienced back into their own lives, families, work and communities.

And it keeps going.

That’s a pretty massive ripple from me sitting around listening to podcasts about business all those years ago. But the people who made them don’t know any of that.

Maybe somewhere in their old analytics I showed up as one download. That’s about as much of the story as they got to see.

There’s no analytic that tells them what that one download eventually turned into. They can’t see the decisions I made afterwards or all the people who have been affected in some way because of them.

That’s the part of podcasting I think we forget when we get too caught up in numbers.

The number tells you someone listened.

It can’t tell you what happened because they did.

I’ve watched the ripple happen from the other side too

I’ve worked with one of my clients for around five years now. Her podcast is about business and life and how the two can work together, particularly for women building businesses who don’t want everything else in their lives to fall apart in the process.

Over those years, women have found her through the podcast when they’ve been struggling and needed support. They’ve listened to the episodes, eventually worked with her and made some pretty significant changes to their businesses and lives.

That’s already impact.

But it doesn’t stop with the person who pressed play.

If that woman is less stressed, healthier and has more time for the things she loves, that affects her family. Her kids experience a different version of her. Her partner does too. Her friendships might change. She might have more energy and headspace to put into her own business, which helps her clients. And what she does for those clients can then affect their clients, families and communities.

You could keep going.

That’s the ripple.

And somewhere right back at the beginning of it might have been one podcast episode she found at exactly the right time.

This idea sits pretty close to the heart of Kollective Playground and why I care so much about connection and impact in the first place. Impact isn’t measured by how many people hear a message. It’s measured by what happens because they heard it.

That doesn’t mean numbers don’t matter. I work with podcast analytics. Of course I think they matter.

I just don’t think they tell us the whole story.

Podcasting is a slow burn

I’ve seen hosts put so much pressure on themselves over their numbers that something they were once excited about starts feeling like a chore.

An episode goes out and they’re checking the downloads. It hasn’t performed as well as the last one. Their numbers aren’t growing fast enough. Maybe they start questioning the topic, the podcast or themselves.

It’s really not that different to posting something on Instagram and then watching the likes trickle in. We know logically that the number of likes on a post isn’t a measurement of our worth as a human being, but it can still get into your head.

Podcast numbers can do the same thing.

Especially when you’re new and you don’t yet have much context for what those numbers actually mean.

An episode might not get many listeners in its first few days. Or weeks. Sometimes even months. A really niche episode might sit there quietly for ages and then gradually become one of the stronger-performing episodes in your catalogue because people keep finding it through search, recommendations or because the topic becomes relevant to them later.

Podcasting is a slow game. A slow burn.

That is completely normal.

If you’re expecting every episode to give you an immediate hit of numbers to prove it was worth making, you’re going to put a huge amount of pressure on yourself and probably miss some of the other signs that it’s working.

Sometimes one listener is enough to change what happens next

I’ve seen plenty of clients receive messages from listeners telling them what an episode meant to them. Sometimes it’s something the host probably didn’t even think was particularly significant when they said it, but it was exactly what that person needed to hear.

I’ve also seen how one listener can lead somewhere you couldn’t possibly have planned for.

One client recorded an episode with a guest. The guest shared the episode with their audience, a public figure came across it and listened, loved what my client was doing and that eventually opened the door to bigger collaborations between them.

You just don’t know who’s listening.

That’s one of the things I find so interesting about this medium. We can plan the strategy, choose the topics, market the episodes and look at the numbers afterwards, but we don’t get to control what happens once an idea reaches another person.

They might send it to a friend. Talk about it with their partner. Bring it up at work. Look something up. Change their mind. Buy something. Book the appointment. Start the thing. Reach out to the host.

And then something else happens because of that.

You can’t fit all of that neatly into a monthly podcast report.

Those 50 downloads are 50 human beings

If you told me only 50 people were listening to your podcast and asked whether there was any point continuing, one of the first things I’d want you to do is stop looking at the number as just a number.

Those are 50 human beings who saw your show and decided to give you 20, 40 or 60 minutes of their busy lives.

That’s actually pretty amazing.

Put 50 people in a room and stand at the front to speak to them. Suddenly 50 doesn’t feel quite so insignificant.

Podcasting is personal. People are choosing to put you in their ears while they’re driving, walking, working, cleaning the house or doing whatever else they’re doing with their day. If they keep coming back, they’re choosing to spend that time with you again and again.

I’d much rather see a podcast with 50 of the right people listening properly than 1,000 people pressing play and disappearing 60 seconds later.

Obviously, I’d love the 50 right people to eventually become 100, then 500 and maybe 10,000. I’m not against growth. But I don’t want us to become so obsessed with getting more people through the door that we stop paying attention to the ones who are already standing in the room.

Connection takes some effort from you too

There’s a reason some hosts build incredibly loyal audiences while others can have decent numbers but never seem to create that same connection.

Some of it is the person. There are hosts who have this warmth about them that makes you feel connected to them really quickly. Not everyone naturally has that and that’s okay.

But I also think vulnerability and being personable matter. Not vulnerability for the sake of telling the internet every private detail of your life, but being willing to let people know the human behind the microphone. Sharing the experience as well as the lesson. Letting your personality come through. Actually caring about the conversation you’re having.

Trust also builds over time. You keep showing up. You release the episodes when you say you will. Someone listens once, then again, then again. Eventually you’re not some random podcast they found anymore. You’re part of their regular listening.

And I think we forget sometimes that connection is a two-way street.

If someone takes the time to message you about an episode, message them back. If they comment, respond. If they email you, acknowledge them. Appreciate that out of the ridiculous amount of content available to them, they’ve chosen to spend some of their time with you.

Those are the people who become your biggest supporters. They’re also the people most likely to tell somebody else about your podcast because they trust you and feel connected to what you’re doing.

That’s another ripple.

So you want 10,000 downloads. Why?

There’s nothing wrong with wanting your podcast to grow. If you told me you wanted 10,000 downloads, though, I’d probably have a few more questions.

For starters, why 10,000?

What does reaching that number actually do for you beyond being able to say you reached it? Who are those people? Are they the people you actually want listening? Are they sticking around for the episode? And what are you hoping happens once they’ve listened?

I’d also want to know what you’re willing to do to get there because releasing an episode isn’t enough these days. You need to understand your audience, research, market the show, collaborate, build solid foundations, keep showing up and make something worth listening to in the first place.

A bigger audience usually requires effort outside the podcast itself.

But even after all of that, I still want to know what the deeper goal is.

If you’re using your podcast to support a business, maybe you want listeners to become clients. Maybe you want to build a community. Maybe you want your ideas to reach people who need them. Maybe you want to create opportunities, educate people or start conversations that aren’t happening enough.

Great. Now we’ve got something more useful than 10,000.

Yes, your podcast can make money

I’m absolutely fine with people making money from their podcasts. I’m fine with podcasts generating clients, attracting sponsors, selling products and creating opportunities for the host.

Money can also be reinvested into the show and help you keep doing the work you care about.

What I don’t connect with is when money or fame is the only point and the listeners are basically treated as numbers waiting to be monetised.

That’s not my kind of podcasting and, to be honest, they’re probably not my people.

People can tell when they’re constantly being sold to. It’s pretty hard to build genuine trust and connection with someone when the relationship only seems to matter because you eventually want money from them. And when you’re deliberately doing that to vulnerable people, I have even less patience for it.

A podcast can make money and genuinely help people. Those things aren’t opposites.

For the people I want to work with, I just want there to be something underneath the money too.

The ripple can change the host as well

There’s another kind of impact I don’t think we talk about enough because we’re so focused on what a podcast does for the listener.

What does making it do to you?

You might become more confident putting your ideas into the world. You might get better at having conversations or explaining what you think. You might change your mind about things because you’ve spoken to people you wouldn’t otherwise have met. You might become more comfortable being seen. You might discover what you actually care about because you’ve spent a few years talking about it.

You evolve.

The host at episode 100 usually isn’t exactly the same person who nervously sat down to record episode one. And that change can ripple out too. Into their work, relationships, confidence and whatever they decide to create next.

That’s part of the impact of podcasting as well.

Maybe that’s why I struggle when the entire success of a podcast gets reduced to the number sitting on an analytics dashboard.

The numbers can tell us how many people pressed play.

They can’t tell us everything that happened afterwards.