The Growth Advice we didn't take

When I am asked about the name of this newsletter, I tell people I named it as a regular reminder to myself to stop should-ing all over myself ?? i.e. give myself permission to take all the "you shoulds" of entrepreneurship and shelve them so I can focus on the handful of things that actually move the needle for Capsho.

This discipline is still very much a work in progress - thank you for accompanying me on this journey as I work through it! - so it's always great to take honest inventory of it.

A few weeks ago, I approached the 100th episode milestone of my podcast Grow My Podcast Show at which point I rebranded it to Win the Content Game (more on this later)

And to celebrate, I peeled back the curtain to honestly look at the advice we dispensed with the help of an amazing ensemble of expert guests but didn't take ??

I won't sugarcoat the fact that we had some false starts and pivots. And it was a humbling experience trying to do EVERYTHING only to do them poorly or get burnt out in the process.

So here are some honest reflections on the 3 things I didn't do - despite preaching about it - and the lessons that I learned.

1. Video

Everybody was talking about the importance of getting on video - even if (especially if!) you have a traditionally audio-only platform like a podcast. Not to mention the discoverability benefits of YouTube!

But creating video content brought up endless roadblocks for us. It required a trifecta - the right mindset, set up and workflow - which we frankly didn't have.

The ironic thing? Once we shelved the should of video, we were able to focus and make much faster progress on what we already had on our plates. And then actually create the right energy, setup and workflow to explore video content creation! So guess what, we're now on YouTube!

>> Check out Win the Content Game on YouTube!

2. SEO

Oh boy.

This was one area we tried to tackle multiple times in multiple ways before throwing our arms up in despair.

There was keyword research, SERP targets, blogging till we were blue in the face, diving into (and drowning in) GA4, learning about schema markups and knowledge panels, and so much more.

The team and I definitely should alllll over ourselves with SEO.

After this reflection, we shelved the universe of SEO shoulds and then decided to focus on the few things that will give us the biggest bang for buck.

Lucky for us, SEO Expert Damon Burton came into our lives to help point us to exactly what that is!

Spoiler Alert: If you do nothing else for SEO, make sure you do Schema Markups!

>> Check out Damon's Masterclass on Schema Markups here

3. Climbing the podcast charts

It was tempting to chase the Top 1% ranking but as seductive as the limelight can be, this was never my end goal. I always focused on conversions from my content over downloads and cared more about growing our email list rather than hitting the top 1% of Apple Podcasts.

Reflecting on this made me realize the podcast name, Grow My Podcast Show, misrepresented what my content was about. At face value, it seemed like a resource to hep you achieve chart-topping fame. But I personally define growth by how many leads and customers we attracted from our content.

This is what led to the rebrand of my podcast to Win the Content Game.

Which leads to one piece of advice I DID follow.

In Episode 85, my expert guest, the amazing Jay Acunzo, shared with us the importance of having a unique premise for your show. So I followed his framework to a tee in planning out Win the Content Game and even documented this process. Click below to listen!

Which should are you shelving? Let me know in the comments below!

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