The plight of poor planning with Greg Rutherford MBE & Andrew Steele

James Bishop [00:00:04]:

Dear listeners, we are gathered here today to reflect on a podcast that is no longer with us. Life and performance. The podcast explored balancing peak athletic performance with a healthy lifestyle. Haunting us today are its hosts, Andrew Steele and Greg Rutherford, both former Olympic athletes. It launched in 2016. Andrew and Greg released two episodes within a month before the show was left to perish. On this episode, we'll learn what caused the Life and Performance podcast to be yet another headstone in the podcast graveyard. We'll celebrate the highs, lament the lows, and discuss whether it should later rest forever or be brought back to life from one fine play.

James Bishop [00:00:48]:

This is Podcast Graveyard. Welcome to this service. I'm your host, James Bishop, and I've been producing podcasts for years. What I've learned is that one of the hardest things to do is keep your podcast alive. There's nearly 4 million podcasts available today, but fewer than 8% are alive and kicking. I'm curious to learn more about these lost shows. Why did they start? What led them to stop? And what can we learn from their untimely demise? Who knows, perhaps we'll even bring some back from the Podcast Graveyard. Let's begin proceeding.

James Bishop [00:01:26]:

Gents, thanks for joining me today. I think we should start the show with something you didn't do, which is introducing yourselves, the beginning of your podcast. You never say who you are.

Greg Rutherford [00:01:35]:

Do we not?

James Bishop [00:01:36]:

Absolutely not. It just starts you just start talking to each other.

Greg Rutherford [00:01:39]:

I feel like we do it during we're unorthodox as it goes on, we then try and explain things, don't we?

James Bishop [00:01:46]:

You don't mention it's amazing. It's an amazing piece of work. You just start talking to each other, you get started and I love that, like we're just going to start thing. You mention Greg's name, but his first name and you don't get mentioned at all in the first episode. Just supposed to know who you no, no.

Greg Rutherford [00:02:02]:

During that first episode, we most certainly do get to the point where we explain.

James Bishop [00:02:05]:

You talk about your.

Greg Rutherford [00:02:09]:

That'S a good point, actually. Yeah.

James Bishop [00:02:11]:

Gents, thanks for haunting the show today.

Greg Rutherford [00:02:13]:

Thank you for having us.

James Bishop [00:02:15]:

You're welcome. So let's kick off with something you didn't do in your own podcast, which is introducing who you are.

Greg Rutherford [00:02:21]:

I still can't believe we didn't do that.

Andrew Steele [00:02:22]:

I know. Well, over to you to start the.

Greg Rutherford [00:02:28]:

Different one, isn't it? I'm no longer the athlete that I once was, so I'm now Greg Rutherford sports presenter, if you like, and person that lurks on social media. That's I guess the best way.

Andrew Steele [00:02:41]:

And alongside the social media lurker, I'm Andrew I'm yes, I used to be an Olympic athlete as well. And in the last nine years, I've become a bit of a kind of startup tech character building a couple of businesses in the kind of health technology space and sort of intersecting that with my sporting background as well.

James Bishop [00:03:03]:

That is the most understated way of saying giants of British athletics over the last 15 years.

Andrew Steele [00:03:11]:

I think Greg can definitely say that.

Greg Rutherford [00:03:14]:

I don't know about Jackson.

James Bishop [00:03:16]:

Let's dive straight into the podcast before we go off on a tangent. Straight away, this podcast, it's 2016, you're, at that point doing slightly different things. Greg, you were in full time training.

Greg Rutherford [00:03:28]:

Yeah, I was getting ready when we recorded that. I was getting ready. I was actually trying to remember sorry, exactly when we recorded it, we were.

Andrew Steele [00:03:33]:

Arizona in 2016, wasn't it?

Greg Rutherford [00:03:35]:

So it was before, really, the season had kicked off, so it was at the back end of probably my best ever season, 2015, and I was getting ready for the Rio Olympics in 2016. So athletically, it was like a very, very big time in my life because I was trying to retain my title, defending, obviously, from 2012. And Andrew was you were still training.

Andrew Steele [00:03:56]:

I was still just about clinging on to the last gasps of talent in my athletic career. And I was also your manager.

Greg Rutherford [00:04:05]:

You were, of course.

Andrew Steele [00:04:06]:

Really? I was being Greg's, yeah, Greg's manager and agent.

James Bishop [00:04:09]:

I was going to ask, how do you know each other? Like athletics training camps.

Greg Rutherford [00:04:14]:

They we met on a flight to Australia. Really quite interesting.

Andrew Steele [00:04:20]:

2000 and 610 years pre to the.

Greg Rutherford [00:04:22]:

Podcast, going to Melbourne for the Commonwealth Games and we sat on a flight and then we lived in an apartment together on the Gold Coast in Australia for, what was that, a couple of months first, or something like that, funny enough. And I always tell Andrew, I always thought Andrew really disliked me when we first met. And I was quite like this overly excitable child, basically. And I always thought, Andrew is just this really sort of very intelligent, understands the world far more. And I always thought he just found me annoying, basically like an annoying little brother, in a way. And then it quickly developed into a friendship that we've now had that's been incredibly strong for the last well, pretty much from there, really. How long has it been now?

Andrew Steele [00:05:03]:

Well, yeah, almost 17 years. 18 years?

Greg Rutherford [00:05:06]:

Yeah, it's been a long time. So, for example, obviously a closeness is the point. Andrew's my best man at my weding. That's coming up. I was his godparents to each other's children, things like that. So it's to that level and effectively know everybody well. Know each other's. Sorry.

Greg Rutherford [00:05:19]:

Deepest, darkest secrets. Most of the time. There's not really many deep and dark secrets, but it's that level.

James Bishop [00:05:26]:

Amazing. So you're in Arizona in 2016. Yeah. Talk me through how you come to think. I know, let's record a podcast.

Andrew Steele [00:05:36]:

Okay. Let me think. We'd come up with this concept of the balance between life and performance. Right. So we'd been a little bit obsessed with this because what tends happen if you're on a major championship in the athletics team or any sports team and everything you're travelling for the reason of performing a sort of niche physical task at a certain time and hopefully being better than other people in the world at doing that. So everyone gets obsessed with this and gets this kind of tunnel vision and these blinkers on around doing that. And what often happens is sports people can say they've travelled the world and they've done lots of things, but actually they haven't done anything at all. They've gone.

Andrew Steele [00:06:17]:

Someone else has booked their flight for them. Someone else has booked their transport for them. They've been transported directly from the airport to their hotel. They've brought their PlayStation with them so they can stay in the hotel and not tire themselves out, not walk too much, not have to worry about the local food and giving them a bit of a belly ache before their race or something. And basically they kind of like, float through this unbelievably, unaccessible experience of being an elite sports person without actually taking anything from it other than hopefully winning at their competition. And then if they don't win, which is completely out of their control, then they didn't get anything from it at all. Right? And so we used to get frustrated with this. We'd go to these championships and we'd be in Australia or wherever, we'd be in Far East, all over random small towns in Europe, all over the place.

Andrew Steele [00:07:05]:

And we had this sort know ethos that we needed to make sure we actually went out and we got a coffee somewhere and we did something and at local restaurants, and we didn't completely put everything onto the performance.

Greg Rutherford [00:07:19]:

I think what also made us relatively obsessed with this idea was the fact that others looked at the way me and Andrew were and what we were doing and actually held us in contempt a little bit. And it was just a bit like, why enough they're doing that they shouldn't be doing shy mock in a was really weird.

Andrew Steele [00:07:38]:

It wasn't the operating mode for them.

Greg Rutherford [00:07:39]:

No. They sort of looked down on the fact that we wanted to go out and visit things. It was a really weird dynamic between other athletes. And actually, a lot of the other athletes that weren't doing what we were doing actually weren't doing that well either. And that was, I think, part of where we realised, actually, what we do obviously works for us, but actually there's something for the wider audience and more people to try and grasp in everyday life.

James Bishop [00:08:03]:

Yeah.

Andrew Steele [00:08:04]:

So let me summarise, I think what the hypothesis was that in normal life, you accept you need a work life balance to be happy and do well as a human being. And in sporting performance, that gets lost. Everyone says you're all in. You've got to be dedicated, you got to do everything, and actually you can't possibly do that. So you need this balance between your normal life and your performance life. And we think, and still do to this day think that's a worthwhile hypothesis, that sports people and people in the sport need to take on board to say, yes, you need to do all the right things to be a performer, but ultimately you also need balance and you need to be able to experience something else. Because not only will it help you feel better, but it'll probably help you compete better.

James Bishop [00:08:42]:

And why a podcast?

Andrew Steele [00:08:44]:

I don't know. We just thought it would cool.

Greg Rutherford [00:08:46]:

Well, I think.

Andrew Steele [00:08:48]:

We had a bit.

Greg Rutherford [00:08:49]:

Of time, I guess, didn't we? Because back then.

Andrew Steele [00:08:56]:

I was busy negotiating your Strictly deal.

Greg Rutherford [00:08:57]:

You were?

Andrew Steele [00:08:58]:

Yeah, but we were on the training camp. We're in Arizona. We train at sort of 10:00 A.m. Until sort of one and then we're free. Right.

James Bishop [00:09:08]:

It makes sense. Right. There's lots of time as an athlete that especially on a training camp, a lot of downtime. Often resting is the misunderstood extra discipline. But resting involves there's only a certain amount of watching telly you can do. So you're like, keep ourselves entertained.

Greg Rutherford [00:09:24]:

And the idea of resting within sport is completely sort of not again how people see it. Right, so it's not just sitting down, doing absolutely nothing. A rest day, which we touch on, I think, quite a lot in the pod and our thought process is doing things. It's not going for a marathon, of course, but I mean, it's seeing the world and enriching yourself in a way that is still rest because fundamentally you're not doing the thing that you'd be doing in training. Right, so it is rest still for parasympathetic.

Andrew Steele [00:09:53]:

Exactly, parasympathetic, as our famous old coach would describe it.

James Bishop [00:09:57]:

Had you listened to any podcasts when you thought about making a podcast?

Andrew Steele [00:10:03]:

I had listened to a couple, but I feel like that was a I mean, 2016 wasn't early days of podcasting, but it certainly was a different industry than it is now in terms of depth of content out there. I think I definitely had listened to a couple.

Greg Rutherford [00:10:17]:

I'm trying to think what we sort of checked first to see if there's anything along those lines. And there was nothing that we could see. Just before we started today, I had a quick flick to see what is out there. I mean, you have the performance podcast and things like that, but I still actually don't think there's much that similar.

Andrew Steele [00:10:37]:

To it really very niche. Question is, is the audience also so niche? The audience is just me and you, maybe other some mid level international athletes, maybe. Yeah, that's it.

James Bishop [00:10:48]:

I mean, there are a few things and we'll get onto this, that came across in the podcast, but two of them are that your chemistry is really strong. You hear that from the outset. And then the second thing is, and I think it's what got the better of you, really, is you had so much to offer, there's so much to say. It's just like this.

Greg Rutherford [00:11:06]:

That's what I noticed relisting to actually.

Andrew Steele [00:11:08]:

That was one of the first so.

James Bishop [00:11:08]:

Much I was there. You needed someone to just moderate your brain and go continue talking about that one point. Just even if it's just one more sentence, it'll be great.

Greg Rutherford [00:11:19]:

And it is interesting because since recording a more recent podcast, I mean this year, which we've stopped for now just on a limited runoff and listening back to that one, it really is fascinating how but I think that's how we are conversations.

Andrew Steele [00:11:38]:

But it's a stream of consciousness thing really, wasn't it? As opposed to there was no planning.

James Bishop [00:11:42]:

Or there are some incredible there are some incredible moments in it that I really like and components of the show that would set you up for success. So one is co hosting a show is really difficult. Right. I put my hands up that we've tried and failed on a number of occasions to make a co hosted show. The main reason is you need to understand the character that you play in the duo. So a lot of the time when you hear a co hosted show, they're both trying to do the same job. Really. You need one to be like if you think like Anton Deck as an easy like they have clear characters, right.

James Bishop [00:12:19]:

Often in a podcast they're both trying to ask the question or one doesn't understand that they need to be the question asker and the other needs to be the voice of the listener. Or one needs to be the serious person and one needs to be the funny person. By the nature of your long standing relationship, you already have characters that also work really well for the show. So like Andrew tends even if you listen to the show, you find out who you are because you're a bit self deprecating about you and you put him on a pedestal. That's just your natural default doesn't do that anymore. Life has changed your natural default state in the show. It kind of works well because if you strip back what's going on, you lead with the integrity of the conversation of the life and performance bit and you kind of navigate the way through the conversation. So there are the right components in there.

James Bishop [00:13:06]:

Just this overload of ideas.

Andrew Steele [00:13:09]:

Yeah, so much overload.

James Bishop [00:13:11]:

Let's talk about time and money. How long do you think you spent making this podcast? Probably longer than I think you spent.

Andrew Steele [00:13:21]:

No, I think less almost just about the amount of minutes it lasted.

Greg Rutherford [00:13:26]:

Just to add in, I did zero editing of any way, shape or form.

James Bishop [00:13:30]:

The second one's got editing in it though. The second one's got music.

Greg Rutherford [00:13:34]:

Oh, yes, Andrew.

James Bishop [00:13:35]:

The first one's just you talking. And I love the way it's like, okay, we're just going to start by the second one. You then do an intro and then there's some music and then the intro of the guest and then the chaos.

Greg Rutherford [00:13:46]:

I love it.

Andrew Steele [00:13:49]:

I did all the odyssey. So basically, I think, planning wise, we bought a microphone and we had a quick session with a whiteboard before we pressed record on episode one. We didn't know what episode two was going to be at the time, so we hadn't done anything past that. And then I did the editing and the various registering with Apple and putting it out there and stuff. And I had a piece of instrumental piece of music which formed the intro, which I already had made previously. So didn't have to handle any Licencing agreements or anything like that. Very little time, actually, thankfully. I think our mental time in getting excited about what it could have been was quite significant.

Andrew Steele [00:14:29]:

Yeah, we've probably spoke about it a great length.

James Bishop [00:14:31]:

What are obstacles like? You come from sporting backgrounds. You understand the challenges of overcoming obstacles to get to where you want to get to. What obstacles did you find in this podcast making process?

Andrew Steele [00:14:46]:

I would probably say there was just self discipline, as in fact, I think I remember when I first spoke to you, James, we talked about you've got to make sure something isn't just a conversation between friends and hope that other people find it interesting. And that's exactly the flaw that we do. We didn't think about this from actually not in even in a professional way. We just really wanted to do it, speak about something. And then we thought, oh, that would be another thing we could speak about for episode two. And that's why there was no consistency. So we never planned it professionally. We didn't think about the story arc in the episode and what we actually wanted to get across.

Andrew Steele [00:15:23]:

We just started and therefore we never got to episode three because it was so ad hoc and so sort of unplanned that I guess we hadn't put the momentum behind it to do so.

Greg Rutherford [00:15:35]:

Yeah, and the difference and it was difficult, wasn't it, from the point of view of lives were becoming so busy, and because we didn't really put anything behind it as such. It was a case of if you were coming up to my house, could we do something? And then often it wouldn't. And you were painfully busy sorry. With setting up the business and doing everything. And I was often in America.

Andrew Steele [00:15:54]:

But I also think at the time you were in Strictly.

Greg Rutherford [00:15:57]:

Yes. That was still an absolutely manic time and it was a case of we genuinely believed in it, but we just couldn't give it the time, I don't think, either. And it was just marrying things up. And of course, then we decided after the first one that we wanted to get guests in. We sort of thought we'll have so much, just us talking about a topic again, but we try and get some guests in and just trying to arrange any of it just became nine impossible. Yeah.

Andrew Steele [00:16:25]:

And we also had no inherent knowledge.

Greg Rutherford [00:16:27]:

Of how these things exactly weirdly. I feel like you might have got that.

James Bishop [00:16:32]:

What would you say your biggest learnings from the whole thing were that you've taken into making content moving forward? Greg, you make quite a lot of social content now. You manage a reputation. Andrew, you do it from a business perspective or know is involved. There must be things that you took from that experience.

Greg Rutherford [00:16:52]:

Well, for Susie that will probably listen to this by the half, she does an awful lot of my content creation, so I will have to add that in first. But yeah, obviously I guess the bulk of what I do nowadays is online based content and stuff.

James Bishop [00:17:08]:

I guess as well. Now, you've made a podcast series and had a with a commissioner and a producer and seen what goes into it, probably think, oh, that's bit different.

Greg Rutherford [00:17:18]:

No. Well, do you know, actually yeah. Okay.

James Bishop [00:17:21]:

It's not a surprise, is it, really? Like if you've achieved an elite level in sport, you know what goes into doing something? Well, yeah.

Greg Rutherford [00:17:27]:

I mean, of course, if it had the backing that I had with when I was making the Eurosport podcast, then it probably would have carried on going, of course, because you're taking away the onus on us to actually get things done, which was part of the difficulty with the level of things that we had on, basically. I don't know what I've learned. I just sort of keep I'll speak for myself very quickly as well. What I've always said about myself going forward and when I moved from sport into media was that I wanted to always just be me as I am. I was never media trained, never did any of that, so I'd just go for it and I always try and keep that in every aspect of my life. So if I'm not meant to do it, it will show because nobody will want me to do it for them. So I think maybe I've just completely blinkered myself, carried on going headfirst. But if we were to restart the pod, then it would definitely be different.

Greg Rutherford [00:18:20]:

It would be different from the point of view. It wouldn't be us meeting at my house in the gym, which has now been stripped out, ready to be redone with a cover over reds, those sorts of things. But again, when you're testing the waters, maybe we didn't want to commit too much, did we?

Andrew Steele [00:18:37]:

Yeah, I think if I look back, I think if I was to learn from it now, I'd say it's about great media and great content. Looks like it's effortless, but it isn't and it needs to be done deliberately. And I think that's what I would say is we didn't do this in a deliberate manner because we didn't feel the need to. It was a sort of spur of the moment thing we wanted to do a little bit. Like I remember reading an interview with Lauren Hill who said when she wrote the albums for the songs for Mischedication Lauren Hill before the Fujis were big and she just it to be cool in the 500 people that lived on her block and it was just for them. And that was it. And we did this podcast, really, because it was just for us. It was only for our own purpose.

Andrew Steele [00:19:18]:

If you want this to have traction long term, you need to be very deliberate about this, do the normal, professional things. Who are your audience? What are you going to do? An episode 5678, 910? When's it going to end? How's it going to continue? What are all those conditions that we've learned now since I think.

James Bishop [00:19:36]:

No, I.

Andrew Steele [00:19:37]:

Think they're both the both that tell the same story, I think, yeah, there's.

James Bishop [00:19:41]:

A couple of things that we should highlight. One is that it was 2016, not 2022. Everything has changed. It's way harder. Another is that that show concept is brilliant today just as much as it was then. Like, if we were to bring it back, you've got the essence of a great show. We were talked just before we pressed record about who it's for and its target audience and how it would work. And that hasn't really changed.

James Bishop [00:20:04]:

The problem exists just as much now as it did, which shows you that there's probably a longevity. You're not going to go out of date.

Speaker A [00:20:15]:

Quick interruption from today's service to remind you that you're listening to Podcast Graveyard from One Fine Play with me, your host, James Bishop. Coming up, I ask Andrew and Greg whether podcasting helped build their personal brands. And we discuss converting your social following into a podcast following and why it's so difficult. But first, I wanted to ask Greg and Andrew about podcast promotion. Let's dive back in.

James Bishop [00:20:40]:

So you made these two episodes somewhere. You posted them, I reckon you've and this was a thing, I thought, because I was really surprised because I still found it on Apple podcasts. Yeah, I reckon you're going to get loads of new listeners off the back of this. And I was like, oh, it's still there, which means you must be hosting it for free somewhere, because you're not, I assume, paying for that. I know we're going back six years, but did you some kind of promotion?

Andrew Steele [00:21:06]:

No, just our own native social, and.

James Bishop [00:21:11]:

I think this is a thing that people can really learn from. So, again, Andrew, don't take too much offence, but again, you were probably at the height of your well, you were.

Greg Rutherford [00:21:20]:

Doing strictly right, although annoyingly Instagram wasn't as popular as it is now in 2016. It's crazy how much that's changed as well. I don't even think stories were a thing then.

James Bishop [00:21:29]:

I don't think they were. But I guess from the fact that it didn't blow up, because I guess if it had had hundreds of thousands of downloads you'd have gone, okay, we need to prioritise this. You didn't move the toys.

Andrew Steele [00:21:45]:

I've never looked at the stats. It might have been a hit.

James Bishop [00:21:51]:

I love that the truths that we're finding here that I think people will learn so much from are just incredible. I don't even know if anyone listened to it.

Andrew Steele [00:22:01]:

I think the raw audio is on a SoundCloud and that's how I pushed it to Apple podcasts. Yeah, that would be true, right? Yeah. So I've never looked at the listens on SoundCloud. I don't know. Twitter was probably our biggest output at the time. I got about 80,000 or something, something like that on Twitter now. Yeah. Well, then, audience, but we definitely got some feedback from this group of people that call themselves The Athleticos, who are basically extreme athletics fans.

Andrew Steele [00:22:34]:

Like, really extreme. It's a small group. It's a small group. They liked it, but they would like anything. They would like a picture of an egg from me, whatever. They would love it. We didn't find ourselves getting inbound, like, social content about it.

James Bishop [00:22:53]:

Real tricky one there as well, which is something people miss all the time, is that your social following is not the same as the audience you are making the show for.

Andrew Steele [00:23:02]:

Yeah, so much the case, I assume.

Greg Rutherford [00:23:04]:

No, big time. Yeah. I think even making the most recent one that I've done, there was a lot of genuine focus just to go, let's get it on social, get it on social, get tonnes of listeners that way. And actually doesn't translate. I don't think it does, no. Because actually, the interaction on my social was minimal.

James Bishop [00:23:20]:

Who follows you on social? Because I don't imagine it's.

Greg Rutherford [00:23:26]:

Stats, if you like.

Andrew Steele [00:23:27]:

No, well, you don't have much first party access to your own data of your audience anyway on these social platforms, really, do you, in terms of the demographic stuff and the basic age and whatever else.

James Bishop [00:23:38]:

But I think the real important thing is that it doesn't convert.

Greg Rutherford [00:23:41]:

No, it doesn't. And you know what's really interesting with that at times, and because obviously there wasn't much into it, I didn't push it as much on my social anyway. But then it did really well for a few weeks when we did the sports one recently this year. So that's a prime example of social media, actually. Not really mad, but then I can imagine for some of the massive YouTubers whatever, who've become really big over the last few years, they've become big on that because they're big on their pods, their YouTube whatever. So it's a really interesting way how if you start on the other sort of social levels, how it builds those ones, but actually it doesn't seem to work the other way.

Andrew Steele [00:24:15]:

It might not be two way, basically.

James Bishop [00:24:17]:

Yeah, no, I don't think it is.

Andrew Steele [00:24:19]:

Well, it isn't the evidence we've got.

James Bishop [00:24:22]:

Because we talk about discovery and engagement. So discovery is the process of finding out about the person or their podcast. And then engagement is like, okay, now I've heard them. Like, maybe I'm going to go listen to the Life and performance podcast, or maybe I'll find Andrew's business and follow it or whatever. And yeah, it's really tricky. Just on a side note, which isn't really about your show, but I'm just interested because I think people listening to this show, it's a thing that they focus on and it would be great for them to hear how it is for people with a larger community. Do you use podcasts or podcasting as part of your business building or personal brand building? Like, do you go and speak on podcasts?

Greg Rutherford [00:25:05]:

I was hoping on a few over the years. I mean, it's not something that I do very regularly, to be totally honest. But you would obviously some you don't manage your time and whatever else. I've got three kids now as well and I'm the only one that drives my household, so it's a nightmare.

James Bishop [00:25:23]:

And you need a motivation for doing it as well, of course.

Greg Rutherford [00:25:26]:

Yeah. But I think it's very easy maybe for me, because I don't live in London either, so I live away from everything. It's very easy for me to not do things because there's so much to do at home. I guess maybe for you, Andrew, it's probably different.

Andrew Steele [00:25:39]:

I've done a small handful of fairly decent podcasts over the years, but purely as part of building what was DNA fit at the time, the business. So I think that's your point is there's got to be a motivation, there's got to be a goal as to why you're turning up on.

James Bishop [00:25:54]:

Have you found it effective when you've done?

Andrew Steele [00:25:55]:

It really effective, I'd be happy to say, outside of just straight up using the Meta platform. As for digital marketing, it was the most bang for our buck in terms of spend we spent in the classic grey area of paying to be a guest on certain people's podcasts, which grey area may or may not have occurred. It was extremely effective. And then even like paying for just ad space on other people's, really effective for the brand that we were. Because I just think podcasters are, generally speaking, to a very narrow, deep audience who are very interested in a certain type of topic. So if you can find the audience which matches with your brand, like, it was super, super effective.

James Bishop [00:26:45]:

If you had a headstone for this podcast that's not in the graveyard, but it's been six years, what would you write on the headstone?

Andrew Steele [00:26:54]:

This is great. The word meandering would come in a beautiful, energetic, meandering river of nonsense. Of nonsense.

Greg Rutherford [00:27:13]:

Actually. No, you say, I think that is definitely a strong part of someone, but I don't think any of it. I know, of course it was chaotic, but I still have as much belief in it as I did then. It comes from very good. Intentions genuinely, doesn't it? The thought process we still believe to this day has a place.

Andrew Steele [00:27:35]:

My headphone might be like, oh, I didn't realise you were dead.

Greg Rutherford [00:27:41]:

We'll never die. Because forevermore, the conversation of life and performance, no matter what, we will always be having it.

James Bishop [00:27:48]:

But it always oozes out of you, right. Like the end of this show. I always like to think, should these guys, should this podcast be resurrected or should it be laid to rest?

Andrew Steele [00:27:58]:

Exhumed?

James Bishop [00:27:59]:

And this is one of those shows where I think I reckon in some shape or form, it probably already comes out in some of the other stuff you do, but you should definitely think about if you've got the right intent and you've got a vehicle around it, like a business or basically the idea that you had. If you have that passion, you should absolutely do it again. The punchline for me is I think it's really exciting as an idea, as long as it's going somewhere because you're not making or interested. And the thing I've taken away from this is these are guys who made a podcast because they really believed and are passionate in an idea and think that they see a space that they know they have the credibility to fill for a specific audience.

Greg Rutherford [00:28:44]:

Andrew's going to hate this now because I'm just going to be texting him for the rest of the day. He's got to go to Valencia a little while and I'm just like, Right, let's do it. Let's get it going.

Andrew Steele [00:28:52]:

Yeah, but we did need to get it.

Greg Rutherford [00:28:55]:

I guess that was part of what we never had, was it? We never looked for or saw any form of feedback, negative or positive. It was just because we just wanted to just talk about these things. And that's clearly where we went slightly wrong as well.

Andrew Steele [00:29:07]:

Yeah. I would just add to that, I think in my sort of non sporting life, I'm building these digital products, and in digital product management, there's a phrase which say, you are not your customer, and you can have all your best theories about what kind of feature people would love in this app. But unless you actually go and speak to users and figure out actually who is actually using this and what do they want from this, you create these kind of what they call, solutions in search of a problem. You just churn out niceties that don't actually fix a problem for the end consumer. So I think all of this is really sort of consolidating in my head that I think there is an audience, but we need to understand the why of what we're trying to achieve by speaking to that audience, and that helps us.

James Bishop [00:29:46]:

You've just thought of my last line.

Andrew Steele [00:29:48]:

Okay, well, it was a great show. Thanks very much.

James Bishop [00:29:53]:

Gents, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I've learned loads. I think it's been fascinating and I really appreciate you joining and sharing what is probably like the textbook story of people starting a podcast. Let's just record chat, make two episodes run out of steam, and there are this show. I said, I'm going to make a show about people whose podcasts are dead. Everyone goes, that's amazing. Who are you going to ask? Well, there's three and a half million dead podcasts, so I'm wow, I can go for a while, but this is.

Greg Rutherford [00:30:28]:

Like, why didn't we think of this great idea?

Andrew Steele [00:30:31]:

We would have got distracted. It'd be great if this podcast dies, like, as a mess. That would be as a mess of.

James Bishop [00:30:38]:

Yeah, that would be amazing. What I hope is that this show can evolve into the place that people come to announce their shows coming back. So, like, once you've been through the process, come at the idea. This is where this comes. The platform for launching.

Andrew Steele [00:30:50]:

Well, I think it just has two weeks time. Episode two. Let's go, gents.

James Bishop [00:30:56]:

Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

Greg Rutherford [00:30:58]:

Pleasure.

James Bishop [00:31:03]:

So there you have it. I've given them my blessings and I hope we hear them back on the airwaves soon. Let's reflect on three key lessons from today's service. Number one, plan your content. People often neglect what I call the first mile of content, sometimes known as pre production. As Andrew said, the word on his headstone would be meandering. At least some planning and scripting in advance of recording is vital. Otherwise, you end up recording a conversation that you might as well just have down the pub and not delivering any clear value to your audience.

James Bishop [00:31:33]:

Number two, market your content. Ideally, at least half your resource. That time, money and effort should go into marketing. As you heard in our chat, even for someone in the public eye with a large following, just posting on your native social accounts is not enough. Remember, the people following you on your social media accounts aren't necessarily the same audience you're trying to target with your podcast. Last but not least, don't lose self belief. As Greg mentioned, despite all the chaos, he still believes in the show. This is such an important lesson for creators everywhere to keep on keeping on.

James Bishop [00:32:09]:

As we bring this service to a close, we ask you to please pay your respects by recommending this episode to someone you think will find it valuable. I truly hope that you'll join me for our next service, where I speak to sales consultant John Welsh about his Dead podcast called Humans of LinkedIn. I ask John about the exact moment he knew the show was over, and John opens up about the worst piece of podcasting advice he ever received. A quick thank you to those who have helped make today's service possible. Kazareth Ferzia was the producer and editor. Connor Foley was our assistant producer, and Selena Christophides put together the visuals. Special thanks. Go to Andrew Davy for the inspiration.

James Bishop [00:32:51]:

I'm James Bishop. And this is Podcast Graveyard.