Why A Small Audience Can Lead To Podcasting Success w/Josh Troche

J. Rosemarie Francis (00:00.206)

Intro

Welcome to Tools of the Podcast Trade. I'm J Rosemary Francis. If you're starting a podcast, here's the truth. It's not about you. My guest today, Josh Chokey, puts it perfectly. Don't podcast for yourself, podcast for your audience. Josh has built a thriving production business and has worked with politicians and authors. He's here to share why your audience should always be at the center of your show. So whether you're chasing your first download, are growing a loyal following. This conversation will help you rethink how you create, connect, and serve through your podcast. Thank you.

J. Rosemarie Francis (00:00.78)
My guest today is Josh Troke. Thank you for coming and talking to us today, Josh. I think I butchered that, but we'll do better. Thank you. Thank you for coming and talking to us on Tools of the Podcast Trade. I appreciate you.

Josh (00:09.046)
No, you got it. You got it. Well done. Well done. Thank you.

Josh (00:19.168)
I'm always happy to talk podcasting love talking podcasting.

J. Rosemarie Francis (00:21.614)
So before we get into what you do could you tell us who is Josh?

Josh (00:29.518)
He's this 46 year old guy that has spent most of his life treating his body like a rental car with various athletic and unathletic pursuits. But really, for me, it's I've been a video guy and photo guy for a long time, always had it in the back of my mind. And then I was working someplace and started a YouTube channel. And it went somewhere. And

J. Rosemarie Francis (00:57.516)
Mm-hmm.

Josh (00:59.594)
eventually it was, it's that's what I kind of started my business off of. And right after I started my business, someone came to me and they're like, Hey, can you film for this political candidate? And I'm like, Sure. So I did. And he's like, Hey, you did a nice job on that. He goes, I've got another political candidate that does a podcast. Can you edit that? And I'm like, is there a check attached to it? And he's like, Yeah, he's like, Yeah, there sure is. And I mean,

J. Rosemarie Francis (01:05.217)
Okay.

J. Rosemarie Francis (01:24.814)
Of course, yeah.

Josh (01:29.078)
I just started the business. It was still a side hustle, but I'm like, yeah, so that's, that's where that stemmed from. It's taken me into cool places. And I know you asked mainly about me, but I feel like, boy, I have become, it's my business. And it's, it's what I do. So it's between that and riding motorcycles and lifting heavy objects. And I've done podcasts on the riding motorcycles part so that it all kind of just

J. Rosemarie Francis (01:32.024)
Mm-hmm.

J. Rosemarie Francis (01:57.807)
Hmm.

Josh (01:58.008)
comes back to speaking into a microphone for some reason.

J. Rosemarie Francis (02:01.398)
Right. Okay. And I mean, it's so much fun. I do blogging. I've been doing that for years. And whenever I got an idea, I thought of writing about it. Now I've been doing podcasting for over seven years. And now when I think of a topic, I think I'm going to podcast about it. Do you feel that way? Yeah.

Josh (02:23.534)
100%. It's so funny. I'm looking at another business venture. And I'm like, of course, that's gonna have to have a podcast attached to it. And for me, it's part of it's too, it's the fact that I get to sit down with people like yourself. We get to learn about each other, we get to learn what other people do. And these are conversations that normally you're not just going to have, you're going to say, what do you do? And like, if you and I met at an airport,

J. Rosemarie Francis (02:37.016)
Mm-hmm.

Josh (02:51.724)
I would be like, what do you do? And you'd be like podcasts and I'd be like, great podcasts. And we would probably have a a passerby conversation about it. Whereas here, you're going to ask me direct questions. You're curious, you're genuinely asking questions. And to me, that's how we learn so much about each other.

J. Rosemarie Francis (03:00.717)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

J. Rosemarie Francis (03:09.964)
Yes, yes. Podcast is the great people connector, I like to say. Yeah, yeah.

Josh (03:16.278)
Yes, yes, I absolutely love it. We had I teach a podcasting class at a local community college and I also produce in their studio. Recently, we had Congresswoman Chantelle Brown in the studio. When am I going to have the chance to sit down and like work with someone like that? Probably without podcasting never. When am I going to have the chance to we had Beth Hammack in the other day.

J. Rosemarie Francis (03:23.778)
Mm-hmm.

J. Rosemarie Francis (03:35.278)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Josh (03:44.406)
She is the president of the Cleveland Federal Reserve. Once again, when am I going have a chance to sit down and talk with someone like that?

J. Rosemarie Francis (03:48.557)
Mmm.

J. Rosemarie Francis (03:51.907)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, all right. I'm glad you mentioned the community college work you're doing. And I wondered if you had to distill that curriculum into a golden rule for a business podcast, what would it be and why?

Josh (04:14.318)
Oh gosh, that is an amazing question. I love that. To me, it really is. It's about being authentic. 100 % because if you're authentic, so many of other things fall into line. I always tell people, like picking your audience, pick your niche of who your audience is going to be. Everyone's like, I want to talk to everyone. Well, when you do that, you talk to no one.

J. Rosemarie Francis (04:19.041)
Okay.

J. Rosemarie Francis (04:26.914)
Hmm.

J. Rosemarie Francis (04:32.738)
Yes.

J. Rosemarie Francis (04:43.618)
Right.

Josh (04:43.79)
If you're authentic, typically your audience is going to figure out who they are on their own. I always tell people, typically your audience is you minus a couple of years, because that's who I typically see as an audience for people. I had one person though taking my class, he was a 46 year old man, and I'm like, who's your audience? And he goes, 70 year old women. And I'm like, what?

J. Rosemarie Francis (04:49.986)
Mm-hmm.

J. Rosemarie Francis (04:59.799)
Yes.

Josh (05:10.54)
Are you not what's what is your podcast going to be about and he goes, he my podcast because I'm going to interview my mother about her poetry. okay. Yeah, 70 year old women fit. But yeah, it's it's just be authentic. That is the one golden rule.

J. Rosemarie Francis (05:20.564)
Yes, yes, yes.

J. Rosemarie Francis (05:26.988)
Yes, I appreciate that. isn't it amazing? There's so much room for us to be authentic in this competitive world of podcasting, right?

Josh (05:38.186)
It's funny you say that because yes, we need to be authentic because people see right through the baloney feathers otherwise. And then to me, the other thing that I see is, is everyone talks about it as competitive and it kind of is. But the other way that I look at it is too, like our core value success is a shared thing. If everyone around us is podcasting better than

J. Rosemarie Francis (05:46.785)
Hmm.

Josh (06:07.16)
just podcasting as a whole is better and it's going to draw more people. The other way that I look at it is just because someone's listening to your podcast doesn't mean they're not listening to mine. I'm only going to send something out once a week. mean, that's there's a whole bunch of rest of the week that they can listen to everyone else's podcast. So I kind of look at it that direction. Like, look, there is it's competitive, but there's space. And if you're yourself and

J. Rosemarie Francis (06:10.733)
Mm-hmm.

J. Rosemarie Francis (06:28.344)
Yeah.

Josh (06:37.09)
just your quality, you do something of quality and you yourself, two thumbs up, you're gonna, you're gonna be fine.

J. Rosemarie Francis (06:43.502)
Yeah, of course. Yeah. Interesting. And you've been working with a lot of business. You mentioned politicians and that very challenging world. What do you think most new podcasters get wrong about using a podcast as a marketing tool?

Josh (07:07.968)
audience size. I think the first thing that they get wrong is the audience size because everyone sees Joe Rogan as the state they're like three mil I need 3 million views and I'm like, there's there's something that I have that I always tell people in my classes that I just love this. It's one of my favorite things because it's transformative. I'm like if if there was eight people in the next room

J. Rosemarie Francis (07:28.098)
Yeah.

Josh (07:32.962)
that wanted to listen to you speak, would you walk into that next room and speak to them and people like, well, yeah. And I'm like, well, then why aren't you happy with eight podcasts, eight podcast downloads? And they look at me like, I can't argue, I can't argue against that. So yeah, to me, it's so many people like, I'm going to have hundreds of thousands of, no, you're not. You're probably for your first, I mean, for your first season, your, your mom, that's going to be your listener is your mom.

J. Rosemarie Francis (07:41.334)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Josh (08:02.99)
And great, speak to her. Two or three other people are going to filter in and out of the room. Make sure you're talking to them.

J. Rosemarie Francis (08:08.982)
Yes. Yes. Yeah. I appreciate you saying that. It's something Pat Flynn says all the time. You know, you're not going to thumb your nose up at 100 people in a room or 10 people in a room because that's a big audience. And you know, yeah. Yeah.

Josh (08:27.266)
Yeah, it's such a key. I and people have these unrealistic expectations. I, growing up, was going to be a professional soccer player. I'm looking around, and I'm not on a soccer field right now.

J. Rosemarie Francis (08:40.526)
And the other thing I notice is that people talk about a successful podcast. Well, what is that? What does that mean? And isn't that something that we should be personalizing as far as success is concerned in association with our audience or target audience?

Josh (09:03.15)
100 % it's when we do a podcast or especially like with video projects, we get companies coming to us all the time. They're like, Hey, we need to do a video. And I'm like, great. What are we doing it for? They're like, because we need video. I'm like, for what? What do need it for? They're like, well, for marketing. I'm like, Okay, well, what's the goal? And they're like, well, because we need video. And I'm like, Okay, right. So yeah, if you set if you set out for

J. Rosemarie Francis (09:16.974)
Hmm.

Josh (09:28.408)
goal in something that you've got a direction to go if you just say I'm going to do the thing. Well, how do you know when you're starting to do those little markers? To me, it's one of the things we help a lot of people through Buzzsprout. And I love the fact that Buzzsprout emails you, you've just published your fifth episode. It's it's a it's a stupid little jpg.

J. Rosemarie Francis (09:38.722)
Bye.

J. Rosemarie Francis (09:43.118)
Mm-hmm.

J. Rosemarie Francis (09:49.516)
Yes, yes.

Josh (09:55.246)
But it's like I tell people all day long, celebrate those things. By golly, you've put work in. It's I believe 86 % of podcasts don't make it past episode 15. So when you get to episode 25, yeah, so what? You've only got 25 downloads. Pour yourself that glass of champagne. You've earned this.

J. Rosemarie Francis (09:55.427)
Okay.

J. Rosemarie Francis (09:58.799)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

J. Rosemarie Francis (10:06.679)
Mmm, yeah.

J. Rosemarie Francis (10:17.888)
Yes, yeah because really and truly it's not an easy thing to do. It's simple but it's not easy and if you're working full-time or have a business it's double difficult. So yes we should celebrate those moments. Thank you for saying that.

Josh (10:35.086)
100 % I also tell people to it like everyone thinks you just sit down in front of the mic and talk and you can. The analogy that I normally make is a podcast is like painting a room. How good that room looks at the end of it is dictated by the prep work you put in. If you put the time in to tape it off, wash down the walls, cut it in all that other stuff, the room is going to look great.

If you just walk in there with a paint can and start flinging it around the room, it's not going to look as good. So it's about that prep work. So yeah, the time involved can be huge, especially to get quality.

J. Rosemarie Francis (11:05.805)
Yeah.

J. Rosemarie Francis (11:12.866)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, for sure. All right. Thank you.

Let's switch to you. You talk about video. So let's switch to your YouTube channel and I see where you say that you was able to grow your channel to 19,000 subscribers and multi-million view videos How can aspiring podcasters harness video to grow their audience and what's one overlook strategy they can implement today?

Josh (11:45.646)
It's interesting to me. It was I did that when I was at the semi truck dealership and with that YouTube channel and to me it was showing up consistently every week and authentically me doing the same thing every time. That was really the key to my growth. The other thing was is partnering with people doing things that were relevant.

I tell people not necessarily to jump the shark, but to talk about relevant topics. Because of the astronomer thing that just came out with the the affair that those the CEO and the HR woman were having. There's another podcast that I that I'm on that we just did an episode about relationships in the office because hey, it's a relevant topic. So stay authentic. But talk about things that are relevant to the time talk about things that are relevant to your

J. Rosemarie Francis (12:38.477)
Yeah.

Josh (12:44.532)
audience and it will grow as long as you stay consistent with that.

J. Rosemarie Francis (12:45.335)
Mm-hmm.

J. Rosemarie Francis (12:51.072)
Yeah, amen. Thank you. What is Josh grateful for today? Switching gears.

Josh (12:57.038)
boy. So many things that the main thing is, is the fact that I am here able to do what I absolutely love. There's some ups and downs and a lot of days where I'm like, but I am so grateful for just the fact that I can come into the studio, I've got clients that I love working with, I've got stories from people that are just absolutely amazing.

I'm grateful that I'm able to do this and it has enriched my life in so many awesome ways.

J. Rosemarie Francis (13:33.07)
Thank you. Thank you Josh Trokey for coming and talking to us today. I really appreciate all the knowledge and expertise that you shared with us. But I'm gonna ask you to give a podcaster, an aspiring podcaster, three tips.

Josh (13:51.702)
read basic tips. One, the the stay consistent with who you are, that is allowed to evolve. But as long as you show up the same way every week, the authentically you and take people on your journey. The other one is is always look for little ways to get better. Don't make don't take these big swings for the fences and say I'm going to build this big giant studio.

J. Rosemarie Francis (13:53.26)
Yes, sir.

Josh (14:21.454)
Add a light, look up how to do lighting better, look up how to do a camera position better, maybe look into microphones. If you can add something every couple of months to your podcast, that makes a huge difference. The other thing is, is don't podcast for you podcast for your audience. Be there for them. This is this is a giving thing. If you show up trying to take

People see that and they're like, well, this guy's just wants me to do stuff. I don't, I don't want to do that. Give them. And if you do it with a giving mindset, people will give back to you tenfold.

J. Rosemarie Francis (14:57.198)
Yes.

J. Rosemarie Francis (15:01.91)
Yes amen thank you thank you for that and I'm not going to let you go until you share with us give us your elevator pitch and tell us how we can get in touch with you and how you know

Josh (15:15.182)
So the elevator pitch that I always like to give is we just we give people their time back we give businesses their time back You touched on it podcasting is time intensive Especially to do it right so we help people with those initial upfront pieces of setting up How am I gonna what questions am I gonna ask? To get a hold of me pedal stopper productions on pretty much any platform

The other one is I will give out a shout out to the podcast, The Business Fix. It is a podcast that one of my podcast hosts and I, we just sat across the table from each other the one day and go, do you want to do podcast together? And before I was even done saying that she goes, yes. And I'm like, okay, so we have had a ton of fun creating The Business Fix. So that is my short elevator pitch and where I can be found.

J. Rosemarie Francis (16:07.808)
Okay, appreciate you. Thank you again for coming and talking to us, Josh. Appreciate it.

Josh (16:13.41)
Thanks for having me. This has been a lot of fun.

J. Rosemarie Francis (16:15.637)
Of course, yes.

Thank you for listening. 

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