Why Listeners Are Craving More Authenticity (and Less Perfection) | 016

Hey, Amplifiers, welcome back to the Podcast

Playbook. So today we're actually talking about a topic

that is very hard for me. I am a person that wants to portray the

perfect image, especially when it comes to this podcast I want

to talk today about that line between authenticity and

professionalism, what is too much of each so I do have my

talking points. They're listed because I'll never be able to do

this. For those of you who've watched me in the past episodes

since I've started doing this podcast, you'll probably can

tell that I'm reading a script, and it's a script I wrote,

however, it is very much more polished looking, and to do that

with this episode would be wrong. We always tell our

clients, as we coach them through that, not to worry about

every little thing. Don't worry about that child screaming in

the background once in a while, or just things like that. People

want to hear you. They want you to be authentic. We have many

clients that want everything edited out, every like um. And I

hate um said, but you'll hear that. I use them a lot, but we

really want to show the listeners the real you. We want

them to make that connection with you. So nowadays, people

are tuning out their perfect they really want the real. They

want to hear you. They want to hear your authentic voice. And

in a world where we're seeing so much more AI generated content,

look on social media, I've seen so many videos I'm like, is that

real or not, and you really have to be suave about it now. The

younger generation can really tell when things are inauthentic

that you are, you know, fake marketing a product or you're

promoting something that you don't truly believe in, and

having everything scripted and perfectly polished can really

play into that, even if you do believe in what you're doing. So

we want our podcast to feel natural authentic, and that

they're like in the moment conversations. So why is this

all so important? So there is this thing called the PRAT fall

effect, and it is the fact that when people see small mistakes,

they actually can make you feel more human, and then thus

increase loyalty. So that unexpected to have stumble over

words, which I'm sure you're going to hear lots in this and

even the squeaky chair chair, see stumbles that squeaky chair,

or the you forgot to turn off your phone, notifications, that

type of stuff while you're talking. It happens, and it just

shows that this is real. It is not super polished. Honesty

builds trust, and you know, listeners can sense when you are

hiding behind a perfect image. We want to share our wins and

mistakes. These will strengthen our connection with our

listeners. They'll build trust, and we all know trust leads to

loyalty, which will outperform the Best Editing possible. The

your you become more relatable. And like I said, I just scroll

up to see my talking points. Connection will beat

presentation. So having those heartfelt stories, those open

conversations with your audience, is. It's more

important than having flawless audio or heavily edited sound or

video, people will remember that you made how you made them feel,

not how polished your sound was, and sharing lessons from your

own missteps, shows courage. Yeah, audiences can relate to

the struggles that you have. They're feeling it too. We all

suffer from that. I know I do. We all suffer from that imposter

syndrome every once in a while where you know, even though we

know what we know and we know we do it well, it always feels that

sometimes you're just thinking it, and people are going to find

out, and the hell, I think that's one of the reasons why I

script so much. And you know, it's so much better to just be

yourself and just have that conversation and really allow

yourself to shine. So another thing that's been happening is

people fake these messy moments. I wish I was faking this one.

They this the what's the word I'm looking for, this planned

spontaneity of things happening can really turn people off, so

be careful of that too. Just be your authentic self, but don't

force it. It's just another form of perfectionism. So knowing

that and how important it is to be yourself, how do you do it

correctly, especially in a podcast setting? So let the

quirks in your recording stay in. I'm not editing this episode

whatsoever. I'm going to leave it go just the way it is. It's

going to be a short one, because I talk a lot, but yeah, like I

said, Let the quirk stay in. Keep those natural moments,

those pauses, those slip ups for me, those ums and, you know, let

it's just all part of having that human touch. And I keep

looking over here, and it's just because my video is on the side

of the screen, instead of looking at you guys again all

these little slip ups, yeah, speak like yourself. I'm sure

you guys can hear the difference between my tonality here as

opposed to previous episodes. You want to talk the way you

would Off mic, how you would in a casual conversation. Try not

to script as much. It's great to have your talking points, but

let yourself go off script, let yourself tell those stories of

what's happening. I've been sharing a lot in my little

behind the scenes procedures as I go along this and that's

another point. Is show your process. You know those little

clips that you could have even just from your recordings. You

know, you can share those on your social media for behind the

scenes look, it helps people see some of either the challenges

you have and also the wins that you're having when you're

looking at your episode, and especially if You're doing a

solo episode like this, think about like you have your talking

points. That's what I'm using right now. But another method is

ask yourself the questions. So just have the questions that you

think would naturally flow from if you were having a

conversation with someone. So, you know, ask yourself, have the

question across your screen, why is this important, and then

answer that question and expand as you go along. If you're

talking about a process, think about questions that would

naturally occur if you were listening to it. What would you

want to ask yourself? And just answer those in an

conversational way, as opposed to having that script so talking

points, questions, that type of stuff, just to help the

conversation go naturally. And something that we always push

for all our

clients is the consistency. So. You don't worry about everything

that you can or cannot control your regular presence as a

podcaster is more important than having those perfect episodes

than having those Yeah, you you want to show up authentic. You

want to show up authentically, even if it's not flawless. I

don't know if that's the right word, but you just want to be

yourself. You really want to show them who you are and what

you know, if you are promoting anything. Make sure you believe

in what you're promoting, that you're genuine about it. People

can tell when you're doing that we talked about that fake

marketing. So make sure that you whatever you're doing is you

believe in and remember that your voice is your brand, your

natural tone. Yeah, your natural tone is your superpower. It is

the thing that is going to bring people in and being your

authentic self, as I said before, really helps build that

loyalty and trust, that no like and trust factor that we talk

about many times and yeah, it is one of the biggest keys when

podcasting, especially When you are selling yourself as an

entrepreneur, a coach, you really want to do that? All

right? Well, I guess that is it. At the bottom line, your

realness is your competitive edge. You like I said,

perfectionism can be impressive for a bit, but your Authenticity

will make people stay so I hope that you found this interesting.

This is a very different podcast for me, yeah, and until next

week, happy podcasting and stay true to yourself. Bye, guys,

bye.