Philip Pape: 0:00

Hey Wits and Weights family. Today's episode is a little different. We're going behind the scenes of the show, based on my appearance and conversation on the Mics to Millions podcast SaGhia Ghia, discussing how Wits and Weights has evolved to better serve you. Now, as an engineer, I apply the same systematic approach to this podcast that we use to optimize your fitness and in this interview you'll hear how I've refined our content, chosen guests and used your feedback to shape the show. So, whether you're here to build muscle, to lose fat, to optimize your health, this episode gives you some of those insights into the mechanics behind delivering evidence-based, no-nonsense fitness advice. And, of course, if you enjoy this type of behind-the scenes content, just reach out to me on Instagram at witsandweights, or send me a text message using the link in the show notes, because your feedback helps us shape the future episodes of the show. All right, let's dive into this bonus episode and get to know the inner workings of the Wits and Weights podcast.

Sam Brake Guia: 1:01

My guest today is the host of Wits and weights, a podcast that cuts through the noise and deconstructs health and fitness with an engineering mindset, to help you develop a strong, lean physique without wasting time. The show receives roughly 20 000 monthly listeners and it's been running since november 2021. Outside of podcasting, he's also a go-to nutrition and lifestyle coach for high performing professionals, which has earned him the name the Physique Engineer, and he's also the owner and head coach of Wits and Weights Nutrition Coaching. He's helped countless individuals in their 30s, 40s and beyond transform their physiques by building muscle, losing fat, breaking through plateaus and optimizing their hormones and metabolism, without restrictive diets, excessive cardio and boring workouts. Phil Pate, welcome to the show.

Philip Pape: 1:47

Thanks so much, man. I can listen to your voice all day. Sam, Thank you so much.

Sam Brake Guia: 1:51

I think everyone, funnily enough, doesn't like the sound of their own voice, and I was exactly the same, and I found out recently or previously that it's actually scientific. There's a reason behind it, which is just science, why we don't like it. Having people compliment my voice definitely gives me courage and confidence to pursue this career, so thank you so much.

Philip Pape: 2:11

You're welcome, and imposter syndrome is rife in this industry and there's always something you're going to find a dislike about yourself. I do as well, and you're right. The more you do it and put yourself out there, we hopefully people recognize the effort behind it as well.

Sam Brake Guia: 2:24

What has been the biggest challenge and like greatest highlight of your podcasting journey so far.

Philip Pape: 2:29

The biggest challenge probably the same thing I tell my clients is having patience. Having patience because this is a it's a long form content that doesn't have the instant gratification of, like going viral on social media with that reel or that remix that you did and you're trying to make the quality high content, relevant. You're trying to please not everybody, but just the right people, and then you don't want to get burned out. You know, through the whole process People don't understand. It takes, especially when you start. It takes hours and hours just to do one episode, when you first get started, from prep to prep and research, to recording, to editing, and then you don't see any results for months, if not years, depending on how much effort you're putting in and what kind of podcast and all those characteristics luck sometimes. So it took a while before anything started to show from it and I just had to keep going and put it in the reps that that's the biggest challenge, just like going in the gym. It's like it doesn't.

Sam Brake Guia: 3:21

you don't see the results right away but you will eventually, and what would you say would be the greatest highlight that you got out of that, uh, or out from podcasting so far.

Philip Pape: 3:31

Yeah, and that that's interesting too, because it's not the numbers, it's not the results like downloads, and it's it's when somebody says, hey, your podcast changed my life. Like hey, I had type two diabetes and everything I tried wasn't working. But you mentioned, you know, going for walks after meals, or you mentioned strength training, and I got into and I started tracking my food. And then all of a sudden, my numbers are great and now I'm, you know, I'm encouraged that I'm going to live 20 more years. I mean, that's so rewarding. Even just one or two of those a year would be rewarding, and I get to hear it pretty frequently when people actually reach out for the podcast. So it's great.

Sam Brake Guia: 4:04

Yeah, I think the word you said there rewarding I think that sums it up perfectly. How did Wits and Weights first begin?

Philip Pape: 4:10

It was a passion project.

Philip Pape: 4:11

It was me, a guy who loves to talk, and I've been in Toastmasters for many years.

Philip Pape: 4:17

That's a nonprofit speaking organization which helps not only get rid of your ums and ahs but also become a little more confident for a guy who was an introvert for many years and so I took my love of speaking and communicating with something that I had gone through over the previous year and a half before I started my show, which was a personal physical transformation getting stronger, building muscle, losing some fat and all of that and doing it in a way that was like a light bulb moment for me. I said I got to share this with folks. So I started in late 2021, just talking about strength training and it wasn't probably until a year later. So I added nutrition and now I'm mostly focused on nutrition, but it's a little of both. So, yeah, it was a passion project, and the coaching came much later, when I saw that there was a need and people demanding it, which I think is a nice, natural way to have done it, and I just love to keep doing it. You know, three episodes a week now. Keep cranking.

Sam Brake Guia: 5:06

That's a really high output, so we can get into that, definitely when we talk about the podcast production. But I want to talk more about the steps you took to get here. You said it was quite slow, or at least podcasting, as we know, it's a slow process. Do you know when you first got to 10,000 listeners overall for your podcast?

Philip Pape: 5:27

Yeah, I looked at the graph. It took about 14 months. So I started in October and then the following December 10K and then it was like four months to get to 20 and then another couple months to get to 30, you know, and it started to accelerate from there.

Sam Brake Guia: 5:36

Well, I appreciate you coming with data, because a lot of time I ask that and people might be like um, I don't know, and it's really nice to hear a tangible answer there.

Philip Pape: 5:43

Oh, you got to know your numbers. Anybody listening who has a podcast? You got to know your numbers.

Sam Brake Guia: 5:47

Yeah, yeah. I love that saying you can't manage what you don't measure. And with regards to promoting your show promoting Wits and Weights what have you found to be some of the best ways to get it out into the world and reach new audiences and get listeners?

Philip Pape: 6:01

Man, I'll admit, promoting podcasts is not the easiest thing in the world, you know, because when you try to promote things through social media or advertising or something like that, it just doesn't seem to jive necessarily with the listener that would also listen to podcasts. And so I finally, after knocking my head on the wall after all these months or years, realized collaborating with others and networking and word of mouth is honestly the best way to grow your podcast and it also is the best way to get on podcasts and the best way to network and it kind of all feeds into itself like a virtuous cycle. So you can't be a hermit, you know, you can't be just in a tunnel. You got to go out and talk to other podcasters. You know, like Sam here, whether it's in your space or not, you're going to find very fascinating overlaps between different industries, niches and categories and that's the way for you to get out and borrow other audiences and share your audience. It's like a win-win situation.

Sam Brake Guia: 6:56

Yeah, definitely Win-win is the best way of putting it. And with regards to these like swaps that you're doing, how do you initiate them? How do you find the people? What's your process for getting them?

Philip Pape: 7:07

Yeah, I mean I think you should just be yourself and make the request, but always lead with value. So for me there's a couple of ways that happens. One way is I get pitched a lot now. So one side effect of like growing your podcast is you get a lot of pitches and a lot of them are terrible and I know we'll get into this like what a good pitch looks like. But occasionally I'll get someone that comes along, even if it is through a PR agency, and they're like look, I have so-and-so and I will take a look at their. If they have a show, if they have a podcast, and if their audience is well aligned, I'll say, yeah, sure, I'd love to have them on my show and I would.

Philip Pape: 7:39

A quid pro quo, it's not like a you have to do it, but that's worked out quite a few times, especially with people much bigger than me who they come on my show Cause they're doing the PR press circuit.

Philip Pape: 7:50

And then I'm like you know your audience could benefit if we talk about this topic that you haven't talked about in a while. And here's why dah, dah, dah, how I'm going to provide value to your audience, and so I'm like making a pitch back to them. That's one big way I do it, and then the other is through guests on my show and then through other shows that I've been on. Don't just leave it at that. Like follow up, say thanks, reach out on Instagram, send a voicemail, keep the connection up. And now, all of a sudden, you have a exponentially growing network of friends who will help each other out, and one day somebody will come along and say hey, you know, I had this guy on my podcast. I think it'd be a good fit for yours. You want him to come on, and it becomes almost effortless at that point.

Sam Brake Guia: 8:28

Yeah, that collaboration can get you so far and I wanted to ask so obviously, when you're assessing whether or not to suggest a podcast swap, what is the kind of criteria you look for? Is there a case that you might see a show and think you know what? They're not really at the level where I feel like a swap would be beneficial or be a good investment of my time, or maybe their show is not that quality. Are there certain things which make you kind of decline doing that swap, or are you open to like anything or whatever?

Philip Pape: 8:57

Well, I'm open to anything, but then once it comes through, I do say no.

Philip Pape: 9:03

And I think you have personal experience with this.

Philip Pape: 9:05

You know, we we don't have to name names, but, like I think that's how we connected Right Was, was somebody what, for me, wasn't perfectly aligned on my show, keeping in mind that I only I try to limit at most one guest a week and I have a backlog, so part of it is just numbers, right, it's like I can't just say yes to everybody, but if, uh, if, the audiences are aligned and not too competitive I hate to use that word, cause I think 90% of the time that's not ever going to be the case. You know, even if it's another nutrition coach and I'm a nutrition coach we can still help each other out and the listener will gravitate to who they like and who they want to listen to, and they can follow us both. It's fine, it's perfectly fine. So, uh, I think your answer was do I ever think it's not a good fit? And sure it could be, it could be not a good fit and I'll let them know, but then can I help you out in some other way.

Sam Brake Guia: 9:51

Okay, yeah, that's cool. I think value. First, you mentioned that as being really important and, yeah, to give listeners a context, I did send Philip a pitch and it wasn't a right fit. I think Philip mentioned he was looking for podcast swaps and my guest couldn't offer a podcast swap.

Sam Brake Guia: 10:06

But I have to say I really appreciated you responding and, as bizarre it sounds whenever I get rejection, it's actually kind of nice, because so often you hear crickets and I feel that when someone takes the time to explain why it's not a good fit, for me at least it signifies that your pitch was worth responding to because, like, if you get a really bad pitch and it's obvious it's a copy and paste job no one's going to feel the sensation or need, at least from my experience, to like respond to that, whereas if you, you know you've kind of connected with the host or the person that you're speaking to a bit, if they take the time to explain it, say it's not a good fit right now and then you can always ask like, okay, ask for feedback or ask when would it be a good time? Or if it's just simply not a good fit, just drop it and say thank you for their time. So I'm glad you brought that up.

Philip Pape: 10:49

Yeah, it's so true, because I probably get a few pitches a day and a lot of them are immediate deletes, because you could tell. It's like, hey, I love your podcast, comma, different font size. And then the entire name of my podcast, which nobody would ever say, the whole thing, comma. And then I'm like, no, right there, you've lost me because there's zero time you've invested into this, whereas yours was more personal. You suggested a topic, you know all those things and I think even I think you even tried to make a swap work because the person had like an Instagram live, but then the actual topic and their values weren't quite aligned with mine. And again, I'm not going to name that particular one. But if somebody is coming in to talk about yoga these days on my show, there's a good chance they're probably not going to get on. It's not because I have a problem with yoga, it's just I have 10 other guests that are maybe more for the strength training kind of nutrition side that I'm trying to talk about these days. So you know, it's nothing personal right.

Sam Brake Guia: 11:44

Yeah, a lot of the time we're pitching and this is why, like sometimes, it's easy to just send it and forget about it until you go do the follow-ups, of course, but it's important to understand that so much it comes down to timing, like even just landing in the person's inbox, and it could be like their mood Maybe they're in a good mood that day and, like you know what, I will speak to that person and you just can't take it personally like that. So, yeah, that's really great that you brought that up. And with regards to the guests that you sourced for your show, do they all come from pitches or do you have other methods of sourcing?

Philip Pape: 12:11

them. These days. Most are not through pitches, most of them are me reaching out, so it's kind of flipped. It used to be a lot of pitches. I was on Podmatch it was Matchmaker, all the services and then get a lot of pitches through agencies, which I still do, and I still say yes to some of those. But a lot of them are like big names that I follow that I really think my audience would be psyched about and that I would think never would say yes. That's how I go after and then half the time they say yes. So if you've got 10 of those people and you reach out with a personal pitch for them to be on your show which is a lot easier than pitching to be on a show trust me, people love to be on shows and even if you get a few of those, you're like this is incredible, let's do it. And then you better get to work and do a really great interview for that guest.

Sam Brake Guia: 12:53

What do you look for in the guests? Obviously, you said, it can vary from time to time depending on what you're looking for, but are there common aspects that you look out for and a guest generally go for?

Philip Pape: 13:04

Yeah, if you're talking about general principles and attributes, I mean I'm a big fan of for our show, education and practicality, applying principles of fitness to your life in a kind of a niche area. So these days I try not to accept fitness coaches who are just generic, you know 25 year old fitness coaches, but rather, hey, this person's an expert in gut health or this person you know, I have somebody coming on, um, who she's? She trains only men and and her whole thing is getting you increased testosterone so you can perform in the bedroom via your training. And I'm like, okay, these are cool little detailed angles and they're not really super competitive with me and my audience, but they're aligned with my audience, or me and my coaching, but they're aligned with my audience. So that's kind of what it is.

Philip Pape: 13:50

And then obviously not not obviously I would say the you know bigger and more well-known. The investment of time pays off in terms of, okay, they share with their audience, they have a big following. You're borrowing their audience as well by having them as a guest on your show, but I will say that's not a be-all, that's not a be-all end-all. I've had guests with you know 200 followers on Instagram, but it'll perform really well because they love the topic and the guests and the quality and all that.

Sam Brake Guia: 14:15

That's great to hear, because I think some people do think it's a barrier of entry when they want to guest on a podcast, thinking I don't have the social media, I don't have the online following, and so often I tell them it's like the host will always value what you have to say and the experience and insights that you bring over, like, oh, I've got a hundred thousand. That's great, don't get me wrong. That does have value, but it's not the most valuable thing.

Philip Pape: 14:37

You know, if I could add to that, I think my very first guest appearance ever was on a much bigger show than mine and it was through a collaboration where I paid for her to do a host read ad for me on her show. We hit it off with a conversation and I said why don't you come on my show, Are you good? And she's like yeah, I would love to. And then she did well in the show we had, we had chemistry. And she's like why don't you come on mine?

Sam Brake Guia: 15:04

so you don't force it. Sometimes it just naturally leads there if you again leave with value and it works itself out. Yeah, and you said there right that you you had like a paid promotion. In that sense, have you used much paid promotion or advertising or or social media ads at all for to boost your show?

Philip Pape: 15:15

I've dabbled, but not not very extensively. The only one I've found successful modestly is the types of advertising where a page is set up and they track IAB downloads, official downloads from legitimate listeners, and you're paying per download. But even then I don't know if the ratio of payment to downloads is worth it in that case. Other than that, I have tried Facebook and Instagram ads. I just haven't put too much into it, to be honest, and it'd be cool to know if people do get success growing their podcasts that way. I've heard time and again not necessarily. It's more the organic and getting on other shows and developing relationships where it really takes off.

Sam Brake Guia: 15:55

Yeah, from my experience, that is the case. I think it's the organic growth. I'm obviously biased in, like the fact that I love podcast guesting the foundation of our company. So, of course, yeah.

Philip Pape: 16:05

But it works, it works yeah.

Sam Brake Guia: 16:06

Yeah, no, it does yeah.

Philip Pape: 16:08

Yeah, and let me. Let me add to that. I mean, you can definitely go on the wrong shows and waste a lot of time guesting if you're just like splattering out your pitches everywhere. You know like you do have to do a little bit work up front. At the same time, if your goal is just to practice a lot, that could work. You know, if that's your goal right now, it's just to practice that, that could work.

Sam Brake Guia: 16:27

That's good, certainly when people start out. I've also said to uh given the advice that if you are starting out and you want practice, even doing Instagram lives or Facebook lives, your own audience, even if you've got a small audience, that's a great way to start and then get onto smaller shows.

Philip Pape: 16:41

Yeah, cause that's nerve wracking. Yeah, that's nerve wracking for people. You know I can do it fine now. But you're right, like early on you're like the technology and how many people are going to show up and I've got to make sure to follow the. You know there's a lot at play and then a podcast is easy. At that point you know you're just chatting over a mic.

Sam Brake Guia: 16:56

Yeah, and I like the idea that I'm assuming it's your audience, so they're going to be more receptive of you.

Philip Pape: 17:00

And that too Good point.

Sam Brake Guia: 17:01

Yes, so that's awesome. So you obviously mentioned that you started Wits and Weights more as like a passion project and then it grew into you being able to monetize it with coaching. I'd love to know, like, from an overall perspective, how have you been able to monetize wits and weights and how has this kind of like changed since, um, since starting the show?

Philip Pape: 17:21

Yeah, I mean it's been monetized exclusively via coaching for me. So I haven't even tried sponsorships, affiliates, advertising. If I do that it will be very intentional and like curated I'm going to. I'll do some curated sponsorships if it makes sense, where you can make a lot more than just the standard CPM. So I haven't even tried that, mainly because of the volume of my show, even though I understand that's not the only variable. So with coaching it took a while to kind of get my sea legs on that.

Philip Pape: 17:50

But I realized that growing my email list seems to be a nice entry point to growing a very loyal audience that can hear my offers. You know when I'm ready I provide value, value, value, offer, value, value, value, offer. You know kind of the Hormozy way, right. And so how do you do that? How do you grow your email list?

Philip Pape: 18:10

One simple way is let's say you're going to prepare for a podcast episode and you've got some notes. You can turn those notes into a guide, like a Google doc guide, and make it an opt-in. And now you've already done the work anyway. Now you just do a few extra clicks here and get it up on a landing page. Which understood, if you haven't done that before it could be overwhelming. But you do that and then in the episode your call to action a couple of times is hey, by the way, if you want to follow along, I have a detailed guide for you. You, you click on my show notes or go to whatsonwaitscom, slash free and it's up there, and then that gets people on your email list right and it's exactly the audience you want on your email list. So I've grown my email list by five, six, x in the last year. It's still not huge, but it was tiny and now it's modest, so it gets growing.

Sam Brake Guia: 18:52

How frequently do you put out posts on your email list?

Philip Pape: 18:56

Three to five times a week, okay, so almost daily, but not quite.

Sam Brake Guia: 19:00

Okay, so you got three to five times a week with the email list and then you've got three episodes going out a week you mentioned with the podcast.

Philip Pape: 19:08

Yeah, and it was five. For the last six months or so it was five episodes and just last week I reduced it to three. I kind of made that decision of quality over quantity, you know, and plus my time.

Sam Brake Guia: 19:18

How did you manage your time, Like, how did you manage to do all of that? Like that sounds like so intense.

Philip Pape: 19:24

It's stressful, it is, it really is, and that's why, like rule number one you probably talked about this before is when people say how often should I do my podcast? It's like whatever works for you. Start there as rule number one.

Philip Pape: 19:34

Whatever works for you, where it's achievable and you can be consistent a hundred percent of the time, and that might be once a month, that might be once every other week. I initially started every other week that I went to once a week, then I went to twice a week and I only did that because I had this huge backlog of interviews and I wanted to get the guests out and not make them wait a year. Uh, and then once I had that cadence of two a week, which was reasonable for me, I said why don't I add two more? And I called them quick wits. They were short, you know, like four or five minutes, almost unscripted. It was from my data dump of ideas I got throughout the week.

Philip Pape: 20:08

I have a thousand ideas for podcast episodes at this point and I'm like, how do I get them all out? Okay, I'm gonna talk about creatine on this one and then I'm going to talk about women loading their spine on this one, like all these little belief shifts, and I think people liked it. But I also think it's overwhelming when you put out so much content and now people are trying to catch up with that on your feed. And I do have a couple of the coaches, including a podcast coach who's like, look, you may be overwhelming to them to the point where they don't even want to reach out for coaching because they feel like they have to get caught up first with your library coaching because they feel like they have to get caught up first with your library, I'm like that's, that's interesting, and I was sacrificing quality too.

Philip Pape: 20:45

So, having said all that, if you can find the right balance between quantity, quality and your goals like, what is your goal? Is it conversion? Is it growth? Some blend of the two? Are you trying to climb the charts? Cause there are ways to gain the system. Let's be honest. You can in the short term. That could be helpful long term, and I'm not against any of that. It's just what's your goal?

Sam Brake Guia: 21:01

That's understandable, and do you use any kind of tools to make your process more efficient? Do you use AI or anything like that?

Philip Pape: 21:08

I'm a very efficient guy, like probably obsessively neurotically so, compared to the average person. I'm an engineer by background. I'm a type A. I'm like I'm using all these identity statements but they're a hundred percent true. I'm a perfectionist, like when you add all that together and see how organized I am with my inbox and my calendar, it kind of makes sense that I can somehow make the impossible work and stretch it along. But there's stress behind that. There's a lot of, like physical and mental stress behind that.

Philip Pape: 21:36

So, yes, systems and checklists and processes are going to pay off big time, as long as you don't then say, oh, now I freed up more time, that I'm going to fill up and do three more episodes, cause that's kind of how I do it. I'm like now I have time, I can do more, but having a simple checklist, it doesn't have to be complicated. I know everybody loves these like notion and everything else, which I think are great, but a simple spreadsheet just take what you do in the four or five hours prepping for your podcast, however long it takes, and just systematize it, write it down, put it in a sheet like, put it in a spreadsheet as checklist items, one by one as you move through your process, automate each of those as best you can, or eliminate them. That's kind of the approach I would take is just do what you do, write it down and now try to make it more efficient.

Sam Brake Guia: 22:23

Yeah, that's awesome, and you've made a lot of changes within the past year or so. What would you say has probably been the biggest, almost impactful change that you've implemented?

Philip Pape: 22:32

Okay, let me lay it out. I actually did make quite a few changes in the last couple months of my show. I updated the packaging, not the cover art, but the title and subtitle, my name, the show description, all thinking about keywords, seo, ideal client, those sorts of things. I think that's important. It's not a throwaway. I really honed in on episode titles, making them really good hooks, the show notes really good hooks, and then the structure of my show has been revamped as well, as well as the music. So I used to have either a poll quote from an interview which I'm not a big fan of doing that anymore or I'd have a custom teaser. Now I do a custom teaser. Then I'd have the music which was this long, like minute long, pre-recorded music, with me talking and then the intro, and the intro was often quite long before I got to the good stuff. Now I have a short, like 45 second punchy teaser. It's a hook, it's a story, it's like here's what you're struggling with, I'm going to give you the answer here, stick around. And then the music is maybe 30 seconds long without me talking and overlapping the teaser and the intro, and so it's, and it's cool, like techie, like techno, geeky sciencey music now or, as it used to be, the classic American fitness rock, right, okay, um, and the funny thing is, as I was selecting new music, another guy he's he's a Brit as well, right, we gave each other podcast feedback and he's like, yeah, it just sounds like every other American fitness podcast, like the music. I said, well, you're in luck, cause I had just changed it. What do you think? He's like oh, yeah, that that's much better.

Philip Pape: 24:01

So I changed the music and then, um, the intro after the music. I really get into it fast. I want to get right to some value to the listener and then make a very short call to action and continue with lots of value. The other thing I did this is even more profound is I'm moving away from how to educational and more to what is my worldview, what is my concept and philosophy and how is it like completely different than any other podcast, which for me is applying the world of engineering to fitness, and like building your best system to build your best physique, as opposed to just check, check, check. Do these eat this much protein, do this much, you know, lift this much weight? So I just gave you a lot so we can drill into any one of those. But yeah, now that you made me think about it, there's a lot that's changed.

Sam Brake Guia: 24:46

That's awesome Because there is no shortage of like health and wellness podcasts out there. So I think, understanding what makes you different and understanding what's going to set you apart it seems like that was a big part of the process. Going through this, thinking like how am I going to differentiate myself?

Philip Pape: 25:03

100%. So one of my coaches his name is Jeremy Enns. You might've heard of him.

Sam Brake Guia: 25:07

Yeah, I'm friends with him, I know. Yeah, yeah.

Philip Pape: 25:09

Jeremy. So he uses the term onlyness. What is the onlyness of your podcast? If you had to use one sentence to describe your podcast in a way that no one else could possibly have that characteristic, what would it be Right? And I don't know that I've come up with that one statement necessarily. But if you look at my show notes and you kind of alluded to it in my introduction, it's like being smart and efficient and kind of applying this engineering approach to your fitness.

Sam Brake Guia: 25:33

Yeah, I got that. I could feel that. I see that like that engineering aspect come through a lot and you obviously focusing on a lot right now, or you've previously gone through a lot when it comes to changes with the show. What are you focusing on in the future, like, what's your next ambition for weights and weights moving forward.

Philip Pape: 25:51

I mean I want to play out with the changes I've made and collect data. So I've focused on creating some attribution for the podcast, like using custom links. And when I have somebody join my program, one of the first questions in the survey is how did you find me? And was it through the podcast, like little things like that, to ensure a link between my funnel or whatever phrase you like, and then kind of tracking and measuring that, not being impatient but giving it time to play out.

Philip Pape: 26:18

Where I am now is I see a lot of program or a lot of podcasts at this stage where they grow, grow, grow and then they start to plateau a bit. And I've had a few plateaus along the way. You know my first plateau was early on and I broke through that with collaborations. You know, later on the plateau I broke through through both volume and having bigger guests Right and like. So each of those pieces I can kind of tie to the data.

Philip Pape: 26:42

And now I'm like, oh, I've had like a month or two that dipped a little bit. You know it was like 20, 2000 this month and it was 19 and then it was 20 and then 18 and you doubt yourself. But then you realize. No, you know, even in podcasting it's cyclical in some sense. Certain months are going to perform better than others throughout the year. Especially the summer with fitness is kind of tough because people are like taking off and it's not like January where everybody's just, oh, I'm going to lose weight. So you've got to pay attention to the data, but not over, overanalyze or give it too much credence. And so I want to kind of break through that barrier. But before I do I needed to put in place the quality, the differentiation, the onlyness, and really tie it into what I do in my coaching and see how the conversion improves before I start to scale again.

Sam Brake Guia: 27:26

Yeah, I mean. One thing that I've noticed throughout this conversation, just generally our interactions, is I really appreciate how much you value feedback and you are such a fan of feedback in the sense like you offer me feedback for the show which I really love, and I'm the same. I really enjoy it, because I don't feel like you can improve or get as far as fast without being open to feedback or even like seeking it out. Do you ask your audience for feedback and, if so, how have you been successful at like getting it or receiving it?

Philip Pape: 28:01

Yeah, that's a good one, because asking for things from your audience is something a lot of podcasters don't do, and that could be not just asking with calls to action, like to download something, but it could be asking them to reach out, asking them to vote on this or this. I'm using a new title Do you like this or this? Having a community where they can do that, like a Facebook community or something else, where you could just reach out and say, hey, this is happening on the show. You guys are the first to know what do you think about? Blah, blah, blah. And then you could even go bigger than that, like a survey. So I did do a survey early in the year and I offered some little prizes, like some supplements or a gift card, something like that Like five, you know, random prizes to the top winners, and I got like 50 responses, which was amazing. Right, because that's a good data size, as long as the survey is constructed really well.

Philip Pape: 28:41

So I'm a big fan of that, and when people give you a one-star review, that's really good feedback too, trust me. No, it really is. It's good feedback because I've had a few of those that, first of all, don't overplay a one-star review. Trust me, we give negative feedback way too much weight versus positive. But there's something in there, some truth in there, potentially that you can glean value from, and just got to. Let it rub off. Don't take it personally and look for the opportunity to grow.

Sam Brake Guia: 29:10

Yeah, and then how did you analyze the data that you got from this form?

Philip Pape: 29:14

Yeah, so because I had so many responses, I didn't want to take too much time trying to pour through everything. So I used AI. I think I used like ChatGPT or Cloud. I downloaded the results in spreadsheet form, dumped it in there and I asked it a bunch of prompts like give me the pros and cons, give me the patterns, give me the demographics, what are listeners, what do they love, what do they want to change? And then I took all that and I also made an episode on it.

Philip Pape: 29:41

Uh, and that was one of my bonus episodes, so it's probably worth me actually going back again and looking at the data and seeing is there anything I haven't already acted upon, cause that's still good data, or have I addressed things that I can go back to my audience and say, hey, you know you asked for this, here's what we've been doing, so I'm glad you brought it up.

Sam Brake Guia: 29:59

That's fantastic. Obviously, we mentioned AI is still not always perfect with its response, and do you find it ran relatively smoothly or was there a lot of kind of like? Did you get quite hands-on to sort it all out?

Philip Pape: 30:10

I think because it's language. These are language processing AI and you're dealing with objective data. You're giving it a ton of high quality information to work from, as opposed to when somebody uses AI and like, hey, make me a podcast episode about XYZ and you're kind of lazy about it and now you're just relying on all the generic information that's out there in the learning model. So the more information you give it, the more specific your prompt, I think the more you can quote, unquote, trust it. Now you should double check if there's any like squirrely results that don't make sense. But I did go in back and look at the data. I'm like what do they mean there? Just to see. And that more than likely caused me to improve how I asked the AI to give me the, not so much whether it was right or wrong. Yeah.

Sam Brake Guia: 30:59

I love this idea of doing the survey. Do you ever elicit in other forms, Like do you ask them to reach out via email? Obviously they've left comments and have you got many other people obviously other than the people you mentioned at the start where they say you changed my life? Are you managing to like get emails from them?

Philip Pape: 31:10

Yeah, yeah, emails and Instagram DMs, I'll get you know I love audio and video messages too. When people do that and trust me, even the biggest people and I'm not big if you look at my IG following, but if you know, you could have somebody with 300,000 followers and assuming they're not a jerk, you know and chances are if you reach out to them and it's not blocked in their other inbox, because that's the other problem.

Sam Brake Guia: 31:35

Yeah, yeah.

Philip Pape: 31:36

A lot of them will respond. You know, like they're humans too, and so it is. It is awesome when somebody reaches out because I will personally respond. I will send voice messages, I'll send a video back and I'm not trying to sell you something, it's just like hey, thanks for listening, anything else I can help with, and then maybe there is something where I can give them another resource or guide. And that's how we build relationships and ultimately, if you're in this for business, that's how you build legitimate sales through an authentic process.

Sam Brake Guia: 32:03

Well, I have no more questions for you, Philip, but I have to say I really do love that you take such an open approach. You're so self-aware, I think, in your process of podcasting. I'd highly recommend everyone goes and checks it out and gives it a good listen and then offers a review, feedback, whatever to Philip.

Philip Pape: 32:21

Either a five-star review or send me a message if you don't think it deserves five stars, and I'll get it there for you.

Sam Brake Guia: 32:27

Yeah, that's great. I love that. I love that attitude. Where else can people find you, Philip, if they want to keep in touch with you?

Philip Pape: 32:34

Yeah, I'll keep it simple. Just the podcast Wits and Weights. Or go to Instagram, dm me at Wits and Weights and you should be able to find everything you need there.

Sam Brake Guia: 32:41

Fantastic, excellent, well, philip, once again, thank you for joining me and making this such an enjoyable conversation.

Philip Pape: 32:47

Likewise, Sam. Thanks for having me no-transcript.