Why most podcasts sound the same (and how to fix yours)
Most podcasts sound the same — and it's killing your growth.
If your show blends into the feed, this episode breaks down exactly why… and what to change.
In this episode you’ll learn:
Why copying “successful” shows usually backfires
The #1 format mistake (hint: your guest intro)
How to build episodes around pain points
Why packaging matters more than you think
The simple rule for titles, intros and structure
Links:
🔗 Podmastery site – https://podmastery.co
🔗 Book a Podcast Audit – https://podmastery.co/lite
Mentioned in this episode:
A Podknows Production
Podknows helps brands and creators to build their podcasts into virtual sales and marketing teams which get them results even when they're sleeping. Find out more at https://podknows.co.uk/
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Book your Podmaster audit
Wanna get unstuck from the sub 100 downloads per month doldrums. Fancy getting closer to top 2% podcaster glory? Sounds like you need one of my Podmaster audits. Go to podmastery.co/lite and within 5 business days you’ll get a full video and written report on my findings. That's podmastery.co/lite
Transcript
Most podcasts sound the same, the funniest part is half the people, making
Speaker:them think they're the special ones.
Speaker:When we talk about SY podcasts, you know the sound, I mean, right?
Speaker:Performative thought leadership.
Speaker:Everyone's speaking like they're on a panel at some mid-tier conference.
Speaker:Every guest trying to outsmart the other, like a zoom call where nobody
Speaker:wants to be the dumbest person in the room and nobody's figured
Speaker:out the raise your hand action.
Speaker:And then there's that really annoying.
Speaker:Aggravating mistake that every single podcast on the planet makes without fail.
Speaker:I mean, I'm talking about 95% of the podcasts that I'm auditing
Speaker:when I'm dealing with clients.
Speaker:The two minute bio at the very start.
Speaker:Today's guest is an author, speaker, thought leader, TEDx Host
Speaker:Extra in the movie Casino Royale.
Speaker:Nobody cares.
Speaker:By the time you are done reading through their LinkedIn profile,
Speaker:your listeners has already gone.
Speaker:Yeah, thanks.
Speaker:See ya.
Speaker:So in this episode, I wanna talk about why most podcasts sound identical, why that's
Speaker:your problem, and what you can do instead.
Speaker:Here's the core issue that most podcasters are never gonna ever admit to you.
Speaker:They're copying what they think are successful shows.
Speaker:They think, well, if I copy a show that's already done.
Speaker:I mean, Richard Branson's book talks about modeling.
Speaker:So if I apply that wisdom of modeling the show that I want to be as successful as
Speaker:and as good as, I will by default become as successful and good as that show.
Speaker:But here's the problem.
Speaker:Most new podcasters are not copying good shows.
Speaker:They're copying visible shows.
Speaker:Which is not the same thing.
Speaker:Now, I'm not gonna name and shame the particular podcast that I am using as the
Speaker:case study here, because let's face it, I've mentioned it a lot in this podcast.
Speaker:You've only gotta go back a few episodes to figure out exactly
Speaker:who I'm talking about, and I don't wanna give this idiot any more
Speaker:RSS feed time than I already have.
Speaker:But you see these.
Speaker:Chart cheating clip every single second of life that ever happened.
Speaker:Trauma bait interview shows, getting all the attention, and
Speaker:you are assuming, oh, that's what a good podcast is supposed to be.
Speaker:You know, the soft lights, the emotional music, the big dramatic questions,
Speaker:the crying guest, and then an hour of fairly plotting conversation.
Speaker:So most people, what they do is they clone the worst bits, the long
Speaker:intros with lots of different clips, montaged together over dramatic music.
Speaker:The bloated interviews that could have been a quarter of the duration, the
Speaker:fake gravitas, and suddenly their show.
Speaker:It sounds exactly the same as every other Founder Journey podcast out there.
Speaker:Most podcasts sound the same because people are copying broken formats that
Speaker:were never designed with intent or the listener in mind in the first place.
Speaker:It's content slop.
Speaker:That's all it is.
Speaker:And it's frankly so irritating.
Speaker:It's got to the point where it would be incredible to hear something that
Speaker:is not performative, not bland, and not designed for mass market appeal.
Speaker:You don't have to do this.
Speaker:Trust me, I've proven it.
Speaker:Let me give you a real world example.
Speaker:There's a show that I've been helping out.
Speaker:It's called Don't Work Harder.
Speaker:They came to us at Ponos Podcasting because their podcast wasn't growing
Speaker:and it's from a big established brand that wants to be seen as the go-to.
Speaker:For podcasting in the thought leadership space because that's their whole brand.
Speaker:It's run by the guys that run Atomic Con.
Speaker:You've probably heard of that now on paper.
Speaker:Everything with their podcast seemed right.
Speaker:They've got the good, strong brand.
Speaker:They've got a decent roster of guests.
Speaker:They have a nice studio.
Speaker:And yes, they have developed a fancy intro.
Speaker:They take all the clips, put them together in a really clever montage, they have
Speaker:the hanging on the end of your seat, tease to end the montage and hopefully
Speaker:drag you into the main conversation.
Speaker:And their numbers weren't what they wanted.
Speaker:And when I listened to it for the first time, it hit me instantly.
Speaker:They had fallen into the let's make diary of A CEO, but make it our way trap.
Speaker:Big dramatic opener.
Speaker:Then a fairly plotty undirected chat.
Speaker:Although the questions were great and the interviewer is fantastic, it was
Speaker:lacking something that, Hmm, the engage.
Speaker:So we came to the point that the guest was fine, the host
Speaker:was great, the format was dead.
Speaker:So what I did when they came to me for advice, I helped them tweak the format.
Speaker:We stopped pretending that the most exciting thing in the
Speaker:episode was having a big guest.
Speaker:and we started approaching it from the listener's pain point.
Speaker:And we built segments around that.
Speaker:Made the guest serve the idea instead of the episode serving the guest,
Speaker:the common trap that many thought leadership podcasts fall into.
Speaker:so now what we've got is a podcast with the same host, similar guests, but a
Speaker:much different intent, and suddenly.
Speaker:It sounds like a show with a spine, not just another.
Speaker:podcast.
Speaker:And here's where most people go wrong, then they start with, who can
Speaker:I interview instead of what is my ideal listener actually struggling
Speaker:with right now, and can I help them?
Speaker:You absolutely need to park to the side any excitement you might have
Speaker:around the guests that you've booked and the interviews you are conducting.
Speaker:Your listeners don't wake up buzzing about your guest list.
Speaker:I don't care who you've got booked in.
Speaker:They wake up thinking about their own personal problems.
Speaker:You are not the center of anybody's universe other than your own.
Speaker:So let's look at it this way.
Speaker:If your audience is burned out, founders, their pain is not, I need to hear yet
Speaker:another founder talk about resilience.
Speaker:Their pain is.
Speaker:I can't keep doing these 70 hour weeks without losing my
Speaker:relationship or my sanity.
Speaker:That is your angle.
Speaker:And then what you do is you pick a guest who can talk about that in a
Speaker:way that's not LinkedIn safe fluff.
Speaker:I'm onto you.
Speaker:I know why you are doing your podcast.
Speaker:you're not doing your podcast because you have a strong belief
Speaker:and passion around the topic.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:You are trying to make your life easier by having clips and content
Speaker:you could easily publish on LinkedIn and get that out the way.
Speaker:Nothing wrong with that, but it's not gonna lead to success.
Speaker:So here's what I want you to do going forward.
Speaker:identify your ideal audience member.
Speaker:What do they look like?
Speaker:What do they do?
Speaker:What are their pain points?
Speaker:Then book guests and solo topics, mix them up around addressing those
Speaker:points, not the other way around.
Speaker:And let's not forget about the way you package this thing up, because even if you
Speaker:nail the idea behind your episode, you can still ruin it with really trash packaging,
Speaker:you know, bland artwork that you've put together within five minutes on Canva.
Speaker:Titles that read like internal meeting notes, 92nd intros, where you
Speaker:are asking people to hit subscribe before you've even given them one
Speaker:single reason to care about doing so.
Speaker:Poor quality audio that sounds like you recorded it in a tiled bathroom.
Speaker:Here's what I want you to think in your head as you are
Speaker:recording, editing, and publishing.
Speaker:This show needs to pop in the feed when it gets into somebody's podcast app.
Speaker:They need to think, I cannot wait another second to hear this.
Speaker:Your title needs to make some very specific person think, Hey.
Speaker:They're talking about me
Speaker:and your audio needs to sound like you respect their ears.
Speaker:It should sound like it could be played on your local radio
Speaker:station and not sound outta place.
Speaker:and for the love of celebration boxes full of bounty bars, your intro needs
Speaker:to get to the point in under 30 seconds.
Speaker:You haven't earned any more than that at this point.
Speaker:Even if they've listened for a few episodes, you don't have the
Speaker:right to that much of their time.
Speaker:Make every second count
Speaker:and carry this mantra with you wherever you go in your podcasting journey.
Speaker:If someone can't tell who your episode's for what it's about.
Speaker:Why it's different from other episodes on the topic, just from the
Speaker:title and the first 20 seconds of listening, go back, re-edit, rethink.
Speaker:You haven't finished your episode yet, so if your show feels a little bit beige
Speaker:and you're not getting the attention that you think you should be from your
Speaker:ideal listener, this is probably why.
Speaker:You've copied the wrong things.
Speaker:Hey, listen, you are not the only one that's made this mistake, but
Speaker:it's not too late to correct it.
Speaker:Stop beginning with guests instead of the audience paying Stop wrapping it all up
Speaker:in packaging that could belong to any one of the thousands of other shows like it.
Speaker:Here's the truth, you don't want to hear.
Speaker:If your podcast sounds like everyone else's.
Speaker:Your listener has absolutely no reason to stay loyal to you.
Speaker:You are content sludge.
Speaker:Background noise, yet another voice in the echo chamber.
Speaker:Find that one thing that you are doing that's different from
Speaker:everybody else and go all in on that.
Speaker:Build your format around it.
Speaker:Then make sure the title, the artwork, and the first 30 seconds of your
Speaker:episode all scream that difference.
Speaker:If you suspect that your show is a bit of a clone and you want a brutally
Speaker:honest ear on it, a kind but brutally honest ear, I'm yet to make anyone cry.
Speaker:That's literally what I do.
Speaker:There's a link in the episode description book in.
Speaker:I'll give you a show, a listen.
Speaker:I'll analyze it and I'll bring you up to speed on where your gaps are.
Speaker:I hope you found this episode useful.
Speaker:If you did, please share it with another podcaster that you know
Speaker:would also get value from this episode until the next episode.
Speaker:Good luck with your continuing journey to attain pod mastery.
