In this episode, Marc describes some of the realities of creating this weekly podcast and what it will take to keep it going strong. Marc reveals the results of the 2018 Repurpose Your Career Podcast Listener Survey and the ideas you have given him for going forward, this year. Marc introduces the concept of listener contributions to support the expenses of the show and gives an outline of changes happening now and coming up on the podcast and also on the Career Pivot Blog. Please listen in for the exciting news.
[1:42] Marc welcomes you to Episode 110 of the Repurpose Your Career podcast. Career Pivot brings this podcast to you. CareerPivot.com is one of the very few websites dedicated to those of us in the second half of life and our careers. Please take a moment to check out the blog and the other resources delivered to you free of charge.
[2:10] If you are enjoying this podcast, please share it with other like-minded souls. Subscribe on CareerPivot.com, iTunes, or any of the other apps that supply podcasts. Share it on social media or just tell your friends, neighbors, and colleagues.
[2:25] In next week’s podcast, Marc will start a series of episodes based on his Multi-generational Workplace workshop. Marc has been updating and republishing his blog series on the multi-generational workplace, first published in 2012.
[2:40] The blog series has proven to be quite popular. Mark Anthony Dyson, a repeat guest on this podcast, suggested to Marc that he use the material in a podcast series. The premise is that each generation, from The Greatest Generation all the way through Gen Y, has some shared characteristics, based on when they grew up.
[3:06] Marc will take you through why each generation does what they do. Marc will also introduce a concept called “Generational Echo Effects.” As we grow up and leave home, we tend to do one of two things: we either do as our parents told us to do or the exact opposite. So, we ping-pong our behaviors between generations. Listen for examples!
[3:35] Marc has a variety of guest experts and pivoters lined up for the coming months. Marc will also be answering your questions with a variety of guest experts over the coming months.
[3:47] This week, Marc will take you through the 2018 Repurpose Your Career podcast listener survey and discuss how Career Pivot will evolve in the coming year. Last week, Marc announced the Career Pivot Blog Survey. If you are a reader of the Career Pivot blog, Marc encourages you to take a moment and take that survey.
[4:12] Marc is also publishing the changes planned for this year for the blog.
[4:21] Marc welcomes you to the 2018 Repurpose Your Career Podcast Survey Results Review.
[4:34] Close to 60 people took the survey, which is double the number for the 2017 survey. First, Marc thanks everyone who took the survey. It has been interesting but not very surprising.
[4:57] Q1: Male vs. Female. On the website, there are slightly more females than males. 55% of the survey respondents were male and 45% were female.
[5:19] Q2: Age. A few were in the 18 to 34 range. Almost 40% 45 to 54. Over 40% were 55 to 64. The ‘sweet spot’ for this podcast, as expected, is in the 45 to 65 age range. That knowledge is helpful for potential sponsors.
[5:57] Q3: Where are you in your career? 30% to 35% are unemployed, for a variety of different reasons. A similar number are working. No one who took the survey answered, “I’m retired, living the dream.” Marc thought that was interesting.
[6:27] Marc uses these questions whenever he starts a webinar to get a good idea of the participants. As he would expect, the majority of listeners are employed, but there is always a healthy subset of podcast listeners who are unemployed.
[6:44] Q4: Where are you located? 90% are in North America. The rest are scattered, including some from Asia, Africa, and South America.
[6:59] Q5: How long have you been listening? Almost 30% have been listening less than one month. (Marc was very interested in those who started listening and went offline to take the survey.) 20% have been listening for over a year. Everyone else was scattered pretty evenly between 1-3 mos., 4-6 mos., 7-9 mos., and 10-12 mos.
[7:40] The podcast was getting about 500 downloads a week until May. In the May edition of the AARP Magazine, AARP featured this podcast. There were almost 10K downloads in May, and it has landed at about 5-6K a month or about 1,500 a week. That is a dramatic increase, which is why Marc hoped for a larger survey than in 2017.
[8:23] Q6: How often do you listen? About 30% say they listen every week. Marc thanks you! 35% to 40% say they select the podcasts for listening. 10% say they binge-listen. Then there are a wide variety of listening patterns selected under “Other.”
[8:55] Q7: What is your favorite type of episode? — Expert Interview, Job Pivoter, the “Can You Repurpose Your Career? series”, Q&A Mailbag, or Marc’s Expat Experience? 40% answered “Job Pivoter.” Then it is almost neck-and-neck between “Expert Interview” and “Marc’s Expat Experience.” That surprised Marc!
[9:39] Marc started with a couple of episodes on his expat experience based on a couple of articles he wrote for FlexJobs on “How to Move Overseas and Take Your Job with You.” When Mar and his wife were in Ajijic last summer, four podcast listeners visited them. The episodes sparked a lot of interest.
[10:02] The remaining answers were “Q&A Mailbag” and the “Can You Repurpose Your Career? series.” Marc has received a lot of positive feedback on the Repurpose Your Career series because people identify. Marc will probably do one in the middle of this year, solicited from a listener who is interested in doing it.
[10:31] Marc is going to make some changes in 2019, and he will cover his plans after the survey results review.
[10:39] Q8: Do you read the show notes? Marc spends a fair amount of money doing the show notes. He pays to have them done. Much to Marc’s surprise, 55% of the survey respondents say they read the show notes. A significant number said they read the notes for the links. Marc says around the podcast industry, links are what most want.
[11:12] Some answered that they read the show notes to find the timestamps for the portions that interest them the most, instead of listening to the whole podcast. Marc found that interesting.
[11:29] Q9: Would you be willing to contribute a small amount per episode on Patreon, to sponsor the Repurpose Your Career podcast? It costs Marc about $100 per episode to produce this. That includes show notes, audio enhancements and editing, the hosting service, Marc’s VA who maintains the podcast on the website, etc.
[12:08] So, Marc is looking at asking for a contribution that might be $1 or $2 per episode. A number of people answered they were unemployed and would not contribute. Two-thirds of the people are employed and about one-third of them said they are willing to contribute.
[12:29] Marc would like to know what you would like to get in return for a contribution. Marc invites you to give him input. Please email Marc at Podcast@CareerPivot.com and he will schedule a time for you to chat and give him input.
[12:57] Marc writes about his on this week’s blog post at CareerPivot.com. Marc is making a number of changes because he is shifting the business. Marc is changing how he is running his business and he is reducing costs. Some people suggested Marc should seek sponsorships.
[13:36] Marc has talked to folks who do sponsorships. While the podcast is doing really well, Marc needs five to eight times the current number of downloads before sponsors will talk to him, so that is a consideration for the future.
[14:04] Another choice Marc has is to change the frequency to an episode every other week.
[14:14] Marc has added a podcast menu feature at CareerPivot.com/podcasts to group podcasts by category. The categories of podcasts are Interviews with Career Experts, Career Pivot Interviews, Question and Answers, Becoming an Expat, Repurpose Your Career Audiobook, Repurpose Your Career Series (Juan and Sara), and Other Topics.
[14:58] Marc is making the Career Pivot website easier to navigate.
[15:06] For this year, Marc is looking at finances and what to do differently in the year.
[15:16] Marc will continue to bring in experts, including Karen Wicker, author of Taking the Work Out of Networking: An Introvert's Guide to Making Connections That Count, and author Chris Farrell, who is writing a book on purpose and passion, and a variety of other people to help you.
[15:37] Marc is looking for people who have made successful career pivots. If you know of someone who would like to tell their story, Marc would be really interested to talk to them. He has one lined up now, for next month, who has written a book about moving from being a lawyer to making chocolate.
[16:07] Marc will also bring back some of the past pivoters, as he did with Elizabeth Rabaey, and play the original episode, with a short interview at the end for an update.
[16:22] Marc will continue to bring back Mark Anthony Dyson to assist Marc with the Q&A episodes, but will also invite other people, including past guest Susan Joyce of Job-Hunt.org and others.
[16:47] If you have a question you would like answered on this podcast, please submit it to Podcast@CareerPivot.com.
[16:57] Marc will also keep you updated, probably once a quarter, on his expat experience. Marc and his wife are full-time now in Ajijic, Mexico. They survived Christmas and New Year’s, which are big deals in Mexico, and they love their fireworks!
[17:21] If you are really interested, find and friend Marc on Facebook, and you will see a lot of his pictures from his experiences. They will probably go into a blog post in the first quarter of the year.
[17:41] Marc will release the next edition of Repurpose Your Career in the middle of 2019. He is still looking for people who can be on the release team. You can go to CareerPivot.com/RYCTeam, and get a copy of the first chapter which Marc sent out last week. Marc and Susan are rewriting a number of chapters and adding new chapters.
[18:23] Marc will be doing one more Repurpose Your Career series, taking a person through an evaluation, probably in June or July, and may do one later in the year.
[18:39] The one thing Marc needs to do with this podcast is to keep it viable by reducing costs and bringing in some money. If you’re interested in helping with that, please give Marc some feedback by emailing Marc at Podcast@CareerPivot.com to set up a chat.
[19:07] Marc hopes you have a good idea of how this podcast will continue to grow this year. Marc thanks everyone who has supported this podcast and made this possible. Marc gives a big shout-out to his production team at Podfly.net, and Stephanie Brodt, Marc’s fearless Virtual Assistant and everybody else who has given Marc feedback.
[19:36] Marc thanks you very much for listening to this episode and he hopes you enjoyed it. Marc thanks everyone who took the survey. It was a joy to see the feedback.
[19:55] Susan Lahey and Marc are working on the next edition of Repurpose Your Career, and Marc is looking for your help. Marc has formed a release team of readers who will get access to pre-release chapters of the book to provide feedback.
[20:07] By the time this podcast episode is published, Marc will have released the first chapter to the release team. You can be part of this team by going to CareerPivot.com/RYCTeam where you can sign up.
[20:23] When you sign up, you’ll receive the pre-release versions of chapters when they become available. What Marc asks in return is for you to provide feedback and be prepared to write a review on Amazon.com when the book is released. Marc will make the e-book available for $.99 so you can purchase it and provide a ‘verified review.’
[20:53] Marc and Susan are adding eight new chapters to the book and re-writing several others. Marc will release a new pre-release chapter on the podcast and to the team every four to six weeks in the coming months. Marc will also be asking the group if they want to form a Facebook group.
[21:26] The CareerPivot.com/Community website has become a valuable resource for almost 50 members who are participating in the Beta phase of this project. Marc wrote about this in this week’s blog post. Marc is now recruiting members for the next cohort.
[21:47] If you are interested in the endeavor and would like to be put on the waiting list, so Marc can interview you, please go to CareerPivot.com/Community. When you sign up you’ll receive information about the community as it evolves.
[22:04] Marc’s plan is to make the community live and open to the world in the second half of 2019. Those in the initial cohorts will get to set the direction for this endeavor. This is a paid membership community with special content. More importantly, it will be a community where you can seek help.
[22:37] This week in the community, Marc has Bree Reynolds coming in from FlexJobs.com to tell members how to maximize their efforts on the FlexJobs website. Go to CareerPivot.com/Community to learn more.
[23:01] Marc invites you to connect with him on LinkedIn.com/in/mrmiller. Just include in the connection request that you listen to this podcast. You can look for Career Pivot on Facebook, LinkedIn, or @CareerPivot on Twitter.
[23:34] Please come back next week, when Marc will be starting the Multi-generational Workplace series of two or three episodes. Marc is going back to Central Texas in early March, to run the workshop for a medical insurance group. The podcast series will be based on this workshop.
[24:04] You will find the show notes for this episode at CareerPivot.com/episode-110.
[24:13] Please hop over to CareerPivot.com and subscribe to get updates to this podcast and all the other happenings at Career Pivot. You can also subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, the Google Podcasts app, Podbean, Overcast app, or the Spotify app.