WEBVTT 00:00:04.299 --> 00:00:09.259 It is officially 2026 and the podcasting landscape 00:00:09.259 --> 00:00:15.099 is changing. For one example, I have heard time 00:00:15.099 --> 00:00:18.600 and time again that a pre -recorded intro on 00:00:18.600 --> 00:00:22.000 a podcast, it just ain't it these days. You want 00:00:22.000 --> 00:00:25.940 to get to the content as quickly as possible. 00:00:26.059 --> 00:00:28.059 And that makes perfect sense, right? There are 00:00:28.059 --> 00:00:33.079 so many things that are vying for our attention. 00:00:33.740 --> 00:00:37.600 that we have so little time to capture people 00:00:37.600 --> 00:00:41.140 and convince them that what we are doing is worth 00:00:41.140 --> 00:00:44.640 listening to. Hey everybody, welcome to the Streamlined 00:00:44.640 --> 00:00:48.200 Podcast. My name is Joe Casabona. I'm a podcast 00:00:48.200 --> 00:00:51.079 and systems coach as well as the evangelist for 00:00:51.079 --> 00:00:54.479 rss .com. And I have been thinking a lot about 00:00:54.479 --> 00:00:59.100 a series I want to create in 2026 called How 00:00:59.100 --> 00:01:03.820 to Start a Podcast in 2026. But as I recorded 00:01:03.820 --> 00:01:08.340 take one of this episode, this is take two, I 00:01:08.340 --> 00:01:11.359 came to the realization that based on the trends 00:01:11.359 --> 00:01:13.599 and things I'm seeing and the advice that I'm 00:01:13.599 --> 00:01:16.760 getting, this might not be the best series for 00:01:16.760 --> 00:01:20.379 me to do. So today I want to talk about the two 00:01:20.379 --> 00:01:24.060 things that I think podcasters should focus on 00:01:24.060 --> 00:01:29.879 to have a good process in 2026 and what that 00:01:29.879 --> 00:01:33.700 could mean for the future of this show. So I 00:01:33.700 --> 00:01:37.920 went to PodFest earlier this year. I gave a talk 00:01:37.920 --> 00:01:40.840 called Don't Let AI Steal Your Podcast Soul. 00:01:41.060 --> 00:01:44.959 But also on behalf of RSS .com, I went around 00:01:44.959 --> 00:01:51.140 and asked a handful of podcasters what we should 00:01:51.140 --> 00:01:55.459 be focusing on for growth in 2026. And I will 00:01:55.459 --> 00:01:57.359 link the video. I would strongly recommend you 00:01:57.359 --> 00:02:00.859 watch that to get the full effect. But far and 00:02:00.859 --> 00:02:06.890 away. The most common answer I got was to focus 00:02:06.890 --> 00:02:13.370 on authenticity. And this warmed my heart. Because 00:02:13.370 --> 00:02:16.930 as I just mentioned, the talk I gave was about 00:02:16.930 --> 00:02:19.509 not letting AI steal your podcast soul. I think 00:02:19.509 --> 00:02:24.810 that over the past few years, we have used... 00:02:25.340 --> 00:02:28.460 AI, and when I say AI, I mean large language 00:02:28.460 --> 00:02:33.699 models. This is what AI means colloquially, right? 00:02:34.319 --> 00:02:38.520 There is no intelligence in what these things 00:02:38.520 --> 00:02:41.620 are doing. They are a glorified word association 00:02:41.620 --> 00:02:46.719 machine. But we've been using them for too much, 00:02:46.719 --> 00:02:49.960 from writing the scripts for us to generating 00:02:49.960 --> 00:02:54.800 audio for us and video. to coming up with ideas. 00:02:55.580 --> 00:03:00.020 And if you are trying to be authentic in 2026, 00:03:00.180 --> 00:03:04.599 you should not be using AI for those things. 00:03:05.020 --> 00:03:09.319 Because even if you do something that seems benign, 00:03:09.379 --> 00:03:13.060 like use AI to come up with 10 episode ideas, 00:03:13.360 --> 00:03:17.159 those are not your episode ideas. Those are other 00:03:17.159 --> 00:03:24.620 people's episode ideas. You need to tell your 00:03:24.620 --> 00:03:28.360 story because that is how you are going to stand 00:03:28.360 --> 00:03:32.659 out. Telling other people's stories or making 00:03:32.659 --> 00:03:36.780 other people's ideas come to life is not the 00:03:36.780 --> 00:03:40.020 way that you are going to make yourself show 00:03:40.020 --> 00:03:43.340 up for people and stand out. And this is coupled 00:03:43.340 --> 00:03:47.080 with another piece of advice I keep hearing. 00:03:48.139 --> 00:03:50.460 I heard it at PodFest and I heard it in a recent 00:03:50.460 --> 00:03:54.180 training we did at RSS .com as well. And this 00:03:54.180 --> 00:04:01.620 was to do a solo show. So Colin Gray mentioned 00:04:01.620 --> 00:04:06.360 this during our RSS .com training. He is over 00:04:06.360 --> 00:04:10.379 at the founder, creator of Alitu and thepodcasthost 00:04:10.379 --> 00:04:14.379 .com. And he mentioned this. And then during 00:04:14.379 --> 00:04:18.110 a panel discussion. at Podfest that I went to 00:04:18.110 --> 00:04:20.850 with lots of smart people on it, right? It was 00:04:20.850 --> 00:04:24.250 my friend Seth Silver's panel. He asked great 00:04:24.250 --> 00:04:27.990 questions to three people, Ellie Puckett, Rox 00:04:27.990 --> 00:04:31.470 Codes, and John Lee Dumas. John Lee Dumas, of 00:04:31.470 --> 00:04:34.689 course, the host of Entrepreneurs on Fire, one 00:04:34.689 --> 00:04:36.850 of the most popular business interview podcasts. 00:04:37.149 --> 00:04:40.529 And this is important because he said if he was 00:04:40.529 --> 00:04:44.689 starting a podcast in 2026, he would not do an 00:04:44.689 --> 00:04:47.029 interview podcast those are a dime a dozen these 00:04:47.029 --> 00:04:50.110 days those don't help you stand out to there's 00:04:50.110 --> 00:04:54.649 too many of these podcasts he would pick a problem 00:04:54.649 --> 00:05:01.290 that he was best at solving and make a solo podcast 00:05:01.290 --> 00:05:06.949 about that and this is really important it can't 00:05:06.949 --> 00:05:08.930 just be a problem you want to solve it needs 00:05:08.930 --> 00:05:13.439 to be the problem that you are the best at solving 00:05:13.439 --> 00:05:17.139 because there are so many things vying for our 00:05:17.139 --> 00:05:22.660 attention in 2026 and i mentioned this because 00:05:22.660 --> 00:05:25.439 one time hearing something once is an opinion 00:05:25.439 --> 00:05:29.459 hearing it multiple times could be a trend and 00:05:29.459 --> 00:05:31.300 i've been thinking about this for a long time 00:05:31.300 --> 00:05:33.180 how i want to do more solo shows if you listen 00:05:33.180 --> 00:05:35.759 to my other podcast i mean this is a solo show 00:05:35.759 --> 00:05:38.459 but then if you listen to my other podcast streamline 00:05:38.459 --> 00:05:42.009 solopreneur which was an interview podcast, it 00:05:42.009 --> 00:05:46.209 is slowly becoming more and more of a solo podcast. 00:05:47.829 --> 00:05:50.350 And then Colin mentions it and John Lee Dumas 00:05:50.350 --> 00:05:52.910 mentions it. There are more people coming to 00:05:52.910 --> 00:05:56.009 me about wanting to do a solo show. My friend 00:05:56.009 --> 00:05:58.750 Becky has a great voice notes podcast. My friend 00:05:58.750 --> 00:06:03.189 Kat is repurposing and formatting her live streams 00:06:03.189 --> 00:06:06.629 in such a way that gives her a good 15 minute 00:06:06.629 --> 00:06:12.800 or less solo podcast show. And I love this for 00:06:12.800 --> 00:06:16.540 a couple of reasons. It goes really well with 00:06:16.540 --> 00:06:19.339 authenticity, right? Solo show plus authenticity 00:06:19.339 --> 00:06:23.939 is like a potent combination. Because you are 00:06:23.939 --> 00:06:27.980 crafting a narrative to help solve a problem. 00:06:28.100 --> 00:06:29.939 And that's what's going to help you stand out. 00:06:30.519 --> 00:06:35.379 And I've also seen this trend of shorter content 00:06:35.379 --> 00:06:40.490 doing well. And this is not. I'm going to say 00:06:40.490 --> 00:06:42.529 something that I don't think a lot of people, 00:06:42.629 --> 00:06:44.870 especially my age, I'm 40, I'm an elder millennial. 00:06:45.370 --> 00:06:48.269 I don't think a lot of people my age feel this 00:06:48.269 --> 00:06:52.569 way. I don't think our attention spans are getting 00:06:52.569 --> 00:06:56.149 worse. I think there's a lot of things competing 00:06:56.149 --> 00:07:03.670 for our attention. But I think that if you create 00:07:03.670 --> 00:07:08.949 something good to keep people's attention. then 00:07:08.949 --> 00:07:12.670 you have you have lengthened their attention 00:07:12.670 --> 00:07:16.170 span if you create garbage then people are just 00:07:16.170 --> 00:07:20.730 going to churn right but shorter content that's 00:07:20.730 --> 00:07:25.470 really helpful has a lot of versatility if you 00:07:25.470 --> 00:07:28.930 saw that this episode was 40 minutes you would 00:07:28.930 --> 00:07:31.310 then have to think about can you commit to listening 00:07:31.310 --> 00:07:33.750 to this episode for 40 minutes but i'm going 00:07:33.750 --> 00:07:37.209 to keep it under 10 And now you think, well, 00:07:37.250 --> 00:07:39.089 that's shorter than a commute. Or I can do that 00:07:39.089 --> 00:07:42.509 while I'm doing my morning routine, while I'm 00:07:42.509 --> 00:07:46.050 drinking my coffee. And I'm giving you something 00:07:46.050 --> 00:07:51.649 tangible to take away. So I think that this short 00:07:51.649 --> 00:07:56.230 solo episode focused on solving a problem is 00:07:56.230 --> 00:08:01.769 a great way to go with podcasting in 2026. Now, 00:08:01.790 --> 00:08:03.370 how does this relate to what I said earlier? 00:08:03.920 --> 00:08:05.759 about me maybe doing a series on launching a 00:08:05.759 --> 00:08:08.740 podcast in 2026. Well, if I want to be really 00:08:08.740 --> 00:08:12.360 good at solving a problem, launching a podcast 00:08:12.360 --> 00:08:15.839 in 2026 is just something that so many people, 00:08:15.920 --> 00:08:18.839 every podcast hosting company is going to do 00:08:18.839 --> 00:08:20.720 this. Every podcast coach is going to do this. 00:08:20.819 --> 00:08:25.160 This is not a thing I am uniquely qualified to 00:08:25.160 --> 00:08:28.339 solve. While I have opinions, everyone has an 00:08:28.339 --> 00:08:32.580 opinion. So what am I going to do for this show, 00:08:32.659 --> 00:08:36.340 Streamlined Podcaster, to make it hyper -focused, 00:08:36.679 --> 00:08:38.779 hyper -niched? This is the other thing that I 00:08:38.779 --> 00:08:41.379 didn't mention, right? If you're going to be 00:08:41.379 --> 00:08:43.519 really good at solving a problem in a solo show 00:08:43.519 --> 00:08:45.220 that's 10 minutes or less, you want to be really 00:08:45.220 --> 00:08:49.299 niche, niche, niched, niche. You want to be really 00:08:49.299 --> 00:08:55.519 niche about it. You want to pick a problem and 00:08:55.519 --> 00:08:58.860 solve it well. And so for me, that is going to 00:08:58.860 --> 00:09:02.970 be... Building automations for solo podcasters 00:09:02.970 --> 00:09:07.090 so that they can actually focus on creating great 00:09:07.090 --> 00:09:12.529 content. Building automations. There are a lot 00:09:12.529 --> 00:09:15.029 of ways I can do this. It doesn't just have to 00:09:15.029 --> 00:09:16.990 be like here's the Zapier of the week or the 00:09:16.990 --> 00:09:20.529 Zap of the week. It could be that. But it could 00:09:20.529 --> 00:09:23.350 be around tools and systems and emerging technologies 00:09:23.350 --> 00:09:27.190 to help you solve that problem. So this is what 00:09:27.190 --> 00:09:30.879 I'm thinking about. for 2026 for The Streamlined 00:09:30.879 --> 00:09:34.679 Podcaster. I'd love to hear what you think. Head 00:09:34.679 --> 00:09:37.960 over to streamlinedfeedback .com and leave a 00:09:37.960 --> 00:09:41.559 message or a voice note. If you liked this episode, 00:09:41.679 --> 00:09:43.279 be sure to share it. And I definitely want to 00:09:43.279 --> 00:09:45.059 hear from you. I want to solve real problems. 00:09:45.700 --> 00:09:47.840 But that's it for this episode of The Streamlined 00:09:47.840 --> 00:09:50.200 Podcaster. Thanks so much for listening. And 00:09:50.200 --> 00:09:53.299 until next time, I hope you find some space in 00:09:53.299 --> 00:09:53.720 your week.