Ina Coveney
Hi, everybody. Today, I have an incredible treat for all of you—my very own Podcasting Mentor, Kevin Chemidlin, is so good to be here. What an incredible moment! Thanks for having me! I have been wanting to have you on for a while. But I wanted to make sure you're my podcast mentor. You're going to watch everything I do. I had everything right so that I could pass the Kevin test.

Ina Coveney
So why don't we just start really briefly by telling everyone: What is it that you do? And who do you serve right now?

Kevin Chemidlin
Yeah. So I help independent podcasters get more listeners to their podcasts and make more money from them.

Ina Coveney
Boom, which is why you're my new, best friend.

Ina Coveney
I want to get into an area of your early life that isn’t talked about a lot, but I feel like—when I found out about it—I just couldn’t stop thinking about it. And that is that at the age of 16, in 2006, you weighed 300 pounds. And if anybody’s watching this video, if anybody has seen you, you no longer weigh 300 pounds. I have to tell you, that was something that usually doesn’t make it into podcasts and isn’t considered relevant to the podcasting role, but I said, “You’re doing it now.” When I learned about the kind of grit and determination it takes for someone who weighs 300 pounds to lose the weight and embrace a healthy lifestyle, that grit just stuck with me. When I look at you, Kevin, I’m not just looking at someone who chose to start a business and make money—the kind of person we love to hear about in the coaching world—I see somebody with such strength and determination. And I would love for you to let our audience know a little bit about what that journey was like for you.

Kevin Chemidlin
Well, thank you, Ina—that means the world to hear you say that. And yeah, the only reason I haven’t talked about that much is because I haven’t been asked. But it’s funny, because I love the reaction people have when they find out that when I was 16 I weighed 300 pounds, and today I weigh 200 pounds—two-thirds of the man I used to be. I just love that. Nobody has any idea, because it means I did what I set out to do: undo all that. It’s funny, because when I look back, there’s so much about health and fitness I wish I knew back then. It’s been a long journey—it took 10 years to really get there. It’s been a journey of chipping away, day in and day out—little decisions that sometimes seem insignificant until one day you wake up and everyone’s celebrating where you are. On one hand, I can’t even remember those dark days, but on the other, it feels like it was just yesterday. That experience has certainly played a huge role in who I am today and has helped me grow my business. And speaking of business, you give a great book recommendation that I’m going to put out here—the book is called The Slight Edge. Can you tell us what The Slight Edge is? Everybody should go and get that book.

Kevin Chemidlin
The Slight Edge is a book that paints a picture of what I just described—it's about being 1% better every day. There’s even a crazy stat—excuse me for screwing up the math—but if you do just 1% better every single day, by the end of the year you'll see this massive percentage increase. And that’s all it is. It’s literally about those little decisions that are so easy to do, yet equally easy not to do, and that philosophy comes straight from that book. I’ll put the link in the description so everybody can go and get it.

Kevin Chemidlin
But since I want to get into podcasting, there are parts of my story that I want everyone to hear about. I came up with a little format that I’m premiering right now—if I ever use it again, we’ll see—but we’re going to use it now. It’s going to be rapid fire. I’m going to say a word, and you’re going to tell me the first thing that comes to your mind. You can elaborate a little bit, but I want to see the very first thing that pops up. Are you ready?

Kevin Chemidlin
Yeah. Let’s go.

Ina Coveney
Owl.

Kevin Chemidlin
Capella.

Kevin Chemidlin
Fun, beatboxing, music. That’s where I cut my teeth as a leader and learned how to manipulate the human voice—which is at the core of podcasting—and some of the most fun days I’ve ever had. And for everybody to know, Acapella is the a cappella group that I co-founded at Temple University. Correct? Am I getting all these facts right?

Ina Coveney
Yes—co-founded—and Temple University in 2010 had two a cappella groups, one all-male and one female. Acapella was the first co-ed group.

Ina Coveney
Eight years later, by 2018, our a cappella group was in the finals of the competition—like the movie Pitch Perfect is about, the ICCAs. They were in the finals. They didn’t win, but I’m pretty sure they placed fourth. I couldn’t believe they didn’t place higher—from nothing to almost winning the world championship. It’s pretty freaking cool.

Ina Coveney
Next rapid fire: What is Utilities?

Kevin Chemidlin
You really did dig deep. Implementing what we teach in the program, I had a bunch of little side hustles up until podcasting. So outside of school—you know, after I graduated and got a job at a big health insurance company—I had some sort of side hustle from day one out of college that I dreamed would become my main gig. Utilities was one of those. The idea was to create an app to help split utilities with your roommates—making it easier than tracking expenses and sending Venmo payments all over—because back then, right out of college, I always had tons of roommates. It was always such a pain managing whose account was used for everything.

Kevin Chemidlin
That was one of many different side hustles. Funny enough, if you met me in the 2010s, I was always working on the next big thing in my head—it went from this to that, to this, to that. Many entrepreneurs understand that path.

Kevin Chemidlin
Next.

Kevin Chemidlin
Yes, so that was the one after Utilities. Actually, it might have been flipped, but get this: It was going to be the next biggest social media app in 2017—geolocated digital pinatas. Go find it; knock it.

Kevin Chemidlin
Next: Philly, Who.

Kevin Chemidlin
Philly, Who—so after all these initiatives and side hustles that didn’t work out, I started a podcast about my home city of Philadelphia. This was the one thing where I said, “Alright, this time I’m tired of side hustles.” Instead of trying to be the next Zuckerberg on nights and weekends, I was just going to create a project that was for me. And I wasn’t going to try to blow it up into a business because, you know, podcasting isn’t something that can actually be a business. So I decided to just create this incredible show, get to know the community, network—and who knows? The next thing might come after that.

Kevin Chemidlin
Grow the Show.

Kevin Chemidlin
It turns out that Philly, Who blew up. I left my full-time job—finally, after four years in the corporate world. After only two months of Philly (which I do not recommend to everyone—I’m happy to explain why, if you want), it was like, “Philly, Who”—within the first couple of episodes the show really started to pop off. People in Philadelphia loved it. It did really well, and I thought, “Is this it? I finally did it. I finally figured out what my thing is—sayonara corporate jobs, hello six-figure income.” And I did it—I started doing Philly full time.

Kevin Chemidlin
Over the course of a year I made tons of mistakes that most podcasters make. But because I’d left my full-time job and my back was against the wall, I actually started going into credit card debt pretty badly—which I again don’t recommend. I was pretty unreasonable about it. When push came to shove, I was forced to figure it out early. I could have gone back to my job, but I wasn’t about to. Still, when you see your savings shrink week by week, you become a worse decision maker.

Kevin Chemidlin
So that’s what was happening—the show’s numbers were shrinking. Fast forward to December, six months full time: I was putting the show together. My podcasts are very heavily edited and produced in my own style—I love audio engineering. You don’t have to do it that way, but I was spending 40, 50, sometimes 60 hours per episode each week, making virtually no money at all. It all came to a head in January 2019. I had released, I want to say, 40 heavily produced episodes in a row without taking any breaks—not even for Christmas—and there was no headway. The numbers weren’t growing. I started going into credit card debt because I had that cushy six-figure income from before and tons of available credit. I could do that, but in retrospect, it wasn’t sustainable. My back was against the wall, and I remember my boss saying, “If you ever need another job, the phone lines are open.” They thought I was going to call them back—and I almost did. But it was January, deep winter in Philadelphia, and I realized I didn’t want to go back to that life—a life of a big corporate job where everything is easy and fluffy, and weekends are just for going to breweries on Saturdays.

Kevin Chemidlin
Before I tell you how this got turned around, I want you to tell us a couple of things you were doing to try to grow the show that weren’t working—one of them even spending money on Facebook ads. What were you trying to do to grow it that wasn’t working?

Kevin Chemidlin
Oh, my gosh! So, first of all, I was spending probably eight or more hours per week manually editing video and audio in editing software. There weren’t the tools today where you can easily make an audiogram (which, by the way, don’t perform well anymore—I recommend all podcasters stop doing them altogether). But at that point, they were cool because it was something new in people’s Instagram feeds. I was spending 8, 10, sometimes 12 hours per episode just making this one-minute audiogram clip with captions and everything, and posting it every week. I was joining Philadelphia groups and subreddits and, whenever I joined, I would post, “Check out my podcast—it's about Philly. You’ll probably like it.” In groups where I checked the box that said “Do not promote yourself” and then promoted myself, they would ignore me completely. That wasn’t working. Then I was like, “Well, I guess I gotta buy Facebook ads.” One day I put together a Facebook ad—it was basically one of my audiograms—and I boosted the post. I don’t know if it was a typo or what, but in about a week I spent $2,000 on a Facebook ad—money I didn’t really have, just credit card money—and I got not a single listener. And I was like, “Well, if Facebook ads aren’t working, now I know—I didn’t understand how Facebook ads work. I didn’t understand advertising or any of that.” But I was just like, “That doesn’t work,” like most entrepreneurs who try something once.

Kevin Chemidlin
Then I found out it wasn’t me—it was all the things that Google says. So I came up with a new strategy: “Alright, here are the rules everybody’s telling me I need to follow to grow the show.” I flipped them on their head—doing the opposite of what they said—to see how it worked. So I want to tell you what that new strategy was and how it worked out.

Kevin Chemidlin
There was that, and I also realized I wasn’t the only person trying to do this. I decided to observe what other successful shows were doing instead of asking podcast consultants for advice. I looked at the shows that were huge and killing it and saw that they weren’t doing any of that stuff. Some of the biggest shows didn’t even have social media, which I found was the way to get started. So I thought, “Okay, I’m just gonna take some courses, read some books, put the show out there, and ignore that so-called Almighty Consistency Rule that says if you ever miss a week your show’s going to disappear forever and you’ll end up in jail.” That’s not true. You do need to be consistent, but consistency alone isn’t enough.

Kevin Chemidlin
So I decided to break that rule and figure out how this stuff actually works by looking at what other people are doing—and then doing the opposite in many ways on social media. There are three things people can do on social media: post, post, post (which is what most podcasters think they need to do to grow an audience); then consume—scroll, scroll, scroll—which is what most people spend 8 to 10 hours a day doing; and the third thing, which everyone skips, is to engage. And that is the sole purpose of social media. It’s not just to post or to consume—it’s to engage.

Kevin Chemidlin
That was the key turning point for me: actually engaging. By engaging, I mean interacting with people on social media. Instead of joining a Facebook group and just posting until you get kicked out for self-promotion, you join the community, get involved in discussions, and interact with people. Be social on social media—in Instagram or any other platform, go find the people you want to reach. Don’t pitch them immediately by saying, “Hey, my name’s Ina, I have a podcast—will you listen to it?” Instead, build a relationship. Comment on their posts; if they comment on Pat Flynn’s post, interact with them. Make a friend. It sounds simple, but many people assume that if you’re good on social media, you’re just naturally a social media person. That’s not true—it just means you interact with others.

Kevin Chemidlin
When I figured this out and started doing it, everything really started to change. I began to see my downloads increase and my audience grow—spending only a fraction of the time I had been spending on social media before. I challenge everybody listening to pull out your Screen Time app and check how much time you spend on various apps. You’ll see you’re spending 4 to 8 hours every day on social media. Now, if you take just 1/16th of that time and switch from simply posting or scrolling to actually interacting with the people you want in your audience or to collaborate with, you’ll see results—often within minutes. Then it becomes fun, and the floodgates open.

Kevin Chemidlin
I tell you, it sounds too good to be true, but it literally changed the game for me. And if you follow me on Instagram, this should be very familiar because this is where it all came from. I came to you thinking, “I want to grow and monetize my podcast,” and when I realized the importance of relationships, it actually might even explain how I hit six figures in my business without having a huge audience. I’d never been able to put it into words until now. I realized that if I answer questions honestly—without putting a paywall on every little question—I can build trust much faster. I always credit you, Kevin, for that mindset shift. You taught me that you can’t swim in the waters of “how much content is too much to give away.” If I answer their questions, then they’re not going to sign up to work with me. I trust that you’ve experienced the same, and it’s been my experience that I can build trust a lot faster when I’m honest. When someone asks me a question, I leave them a voice note with the full answer—as if they were already my client—without immediately saying, “You need to pay me for that advice.” I always credit you for that.

Kevin Chemidlin
And finally, if everybody listening right now has to do one thing in the next 24 hours, it would be this: engage. I’m sure you’ve heard it from me before, but literally put 30 minutes on your calendar. If you’re not getting the growth you want on social media, spend 30 minutes going out into the world of social media, finding the specific target people you want to reach, and just interact with them. Give, give, give. You will see your numbers increase—usually within minutes you’ll start to see immediate results, and then it becomes fun as the floodgates open.

Ina Coveney
Thank you so much, Kevin. This has been a real pleasure. I can’t wait to see you—we’re both going to podcast, and by the time this airs it will have already happened. Everybody should be following both of us on social media so they can see our pictures, because karaoke has to happen—that’s in the cards for us. So where can people find you? How do they find out more about Grow the Show Accelerator, which I completely recommend? Tell us more.

Kevin Chemidlin
Yeah. If you want a quick 60‑minute crash course on my strategy for growing a show, check out our strategy at growtheshow.com/masterclass. I’ve broken it down into four main steps—that’s the basis of everything we do—so you can check that out for sure. And also, listen to the podcast in the app you use to listen, because every single episode offers a full, complete lesson on a strategy for growing or monetizing your podcast. Just pick any episode and you’ll get immense value. And if you implement it, you’ll see results within a week. And if you don’t, DM me—I’ll help you for free. And DM me too; we’re the ones checking those DMs.

Ina Coveney
Okay, we are there—we’re the ones checking those DMs. Thank you, Kevin. This has been awesome.

Kevin Chemidlin
Thank you, Ina. It’s my pleasure.