What's It For and Who's It For? Redefining Podcast Purpose with Dave Bates

Ever wondered how successful podcasters build thriving communities while staying true to themselves? Dave Bates, an executive coach with 30 years of business experience, pulls back the curtain on what really drives podcast sustainability and growth.

Most creators launch their shows expecting rapid success, only to abandon ship after a handful of episodes when reality doesn't match their expectations. Dave reveals why this happens and offers a refreshing counternarrative: meaningful podcast growth requires clarity of purpose, alignment with core values, and intentional community building. "If it's for everybody, it's probably for nobody," he explains, highlighting how narrowing your focus actually expands your impact.

The conversation explores the power of asking two fundamental questions: "What's it for and who's it for?" These seemingly simple inquiries form the foundation for everything from content creation to audience development. Dave shares how your answers to these questions naturally extend to community building—creating spaces where "people like us do things like this," as marketing guru Seth Godin would say.

We dive deep into why communities matter in today's noisy digital landscape. As Dave points out, when you build a focused community around shared values, you "cut out a lot of that noise and create more connections." These connections foster the "know, like, and trust" factor essential for meaningful engagement. Plus, we explore the parallel need for peer communities that provide support and perspective for podcast creators themselves.

Whether you're just starting your podcasting journey or looking to deepen your connection with existing listeners, this conversation offers practical wisdom on aligning your content with your values and building sustainable communities that amplify your message while providing the support you need to thrive.

Visit paravel.com to connect with Dave and discover more resources for your podcasting journey.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introducing Communication Connection Community
• 0:32 Meet Executive Coach Dave Bates
• 1:29 The Entrepreneurial Journey Beginnings
• 5:30 The Myth of Overnight Success
• 9:49 Core Values in Podcasting
• 13:27 Building Community Through Your Podcast
• 17:55 Finding Support Through Peer Communities
• 23:50 Key Takeaways and Closing Thoughts

Transcript

Carl: 0:04

Welcome to Communication Connection Community, the podcaster's podcast. This podcast takes a deep dive into modern day communication strategies in the podcasting space. We chat with interesting people who make the podcasting and speaking spaces exciting and vibrant. We also dive into the podcasting community with news updates, latest trends and topics from this ever-evolving space. So strap in, it's going to be one amazing ride. Let's dive into today's episode, and my guest today is Dave Bates. He's an executive coach who understands the daily struggles, challenges and the big opportunities that feel like they're just a little bit out of reach. He's been a solopreneur, COO, CEO and almost everything in between, too. He's run the gamut when it comes to being in business. Dave's clients experience relief from the pressure of feeling alone at the top of their growing business. We're going to talk about a lot of things today, I'm sure, but first off, oh, and he's a guest on podcasts and very sought after, a sought after, rather sought after, Dave, welcome to the podcast.

Dave: 1:20

Thanks for having me. I'm glad to be here.

Carl: 1:22

It's great to have you here, my friend. So podcasting, you have spent some time as a guest in this space. What was it that led you to podcasting?

Dave: 1:30

I think everybody has a dream someday of having a podcast or being on a podcast. One of the things that's really been interesting about podcasting is how it expands your reach. You know everybody says, hey, I could have more clients or I could have more whatever, If people just knew more about me. That's the awareness problem that everybody seems to struggle with. And I also thought, hey, you know, I've had a lot of experience in my life and it would be great if I could share some of what I've learned along the way. And what better way to do that than to find folks that are tuning in, trying to learn and educate themselves and just share what my experience has been, and maybe it will help.

Carl: 2:04

And you've been at this not at the podcasting game, but in business for how many years?

Dave: 2:09

About 30, if you don't count any of my entrepreneurial stuff as a kid.

Carl: 2:15

The lemonade stand and the grass cutting. Is that the stuff you're talking about?

Dave: 2:19

I think I started delivering daily bulletins on the Air Force Base when I was nine years old, so I'd go to every door and drop it off, and I think I was telling more of my kids about this the other day. I think I was paid maybe a penny.

Carl: 2:33

I love it. It's like I remember having a flyer route and it wasn't a penny, but it was, I don't know. It was like 10 cents per drop and you delivered the flyers either once a week or twice a month, I don't even remember, but I remember being the kid getting the check because it came by paper, right or you might have even come with your flyers, right?

Carl: 2:52

I don't even remember. And you get oh my goodness, I made $17, right? Just remember being so excited about it, and I didn't know that that would lead to running a podcasting agency. But I guess maybe I was entrepreneurial too, way back then.

Dave: 3:05

I think a lot of people are entrepreneurial and then over time they consume a narrative that suggests that they should go the safe route, and I have to tell people all the time that there's a myth of corporate safety right.

Carl: 3:18

But that's a topic for another time.

Carl: 3:20

Yeah, another discussion, another podcast or some type of a webinar series or something like that that you and I can run. Let's take this off mic and cover that another time. But definitely I agree that there's that trap. The way my dad always put it was and he married young. He married my mother, who was going into her second marriage, so my dad was marrying into a family. Basically already he said I'm following the path to cash, the path to money, because I need to make money. That's what I need to do. So he's been in that mindset of money where if you're an entrepreneur and if you're thinking you're going to make money, you will eventually. It's not going to be within a short period of time. There's a journey, there's experience, there's a grind, all of those things that you need to go through before you get to that elusive success, status or whatever you want to call it.

Dave: 4:09

Yeah, you got to build right, you got to build, you got to create, and then you got to build, and then you got to grow, and then maybe, if you want to scale, you can do that.

Carl: 4:16

Yeah, for sure, for sure. So executive coaching, what led you to being an executive coach?

Dave: 4:20

Yeah, I was trained as a coach a long time ago, probably 25 years ago. At the end of the startup that I was working in, when we were shutting the lights off, the lady who trained me as a coach said, hey, god put you on the planet to be a coach. And I said, thank you very much. I'm going to go off and do some operational roles and do that kind of thing.

Dave: 4:41

So I went and followed that more technical, non-coaching path, but I always integrated the coaching lessons that I learned in that process throughout my career and then, probably six years ago, I kind of got to the point where I said, yeah, maybe I should just go be a coach and I said, okay, jane, I'm going to do what you told me to do, and in sort of more formalized way, and that's when I started the company that I am currently running. It's just me as a solopreneur. But that's when I went out to be a coach and I work with primarily second time founders who are not sure if they were lucky or good the first time, and that gives me a lot of purpose and a lot of enjoyment and fulfillment in helping those folks be time and that gives me a lot of purpose and a lot of enjoyment and fulfillment in helping those folks be successful. So that's how I kind of got into it.

Carl: 5:30

Wow, phenomenal. And of course, you were instantly successful no challenges, no struggles, nothing.

Dave: 5:36

Yeah, sure. No, it's always a challenge, right? Everybody goes into entrepreneurship, whether it's solopreneur or whether it's, you know, going to do a big old series A raise. Everybody thinks it's going to go fast for them, and some people it does go fast for, and the majority of the other people it takes a lot longer and you need a lot more support in that process than you think you do. It just takes longer and sometimes it doesn't work. But few people are talking about that in the world. You sort of. We have this cult of personality, this cult of success, the overnight success that took 10 years to build, but nobody talks about all of the things that were difficult in that period of time, and so I think that that is a thing for a lot of people. So it's just a lot of work to get from one place to the other.

Dave: 6:24

Warren, not Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger is famously quoted as saying you need three things to be successful. To be rich Not that I care that much about being rich, but that's his context was you have to be incredibly smart, you have to work incredibly hard and you have to be incredibly lucky. And he says that doesn't happen to that many people, but we all think we're really smart, we all think we're really working hard and we all are confident we're going to be really lucky, and the reality is that that's not always the case, and so one of the things that I talk about is making sure you've got the support structures in place and that you're not trading the future, trading your now for some future which is not guaranteed. So work hard, be smart and hopefully you'll be luckier or Providence will smile on you and things will work out, but recognize that statistically, there's a lot between here and there.

Carl: 7:20

And there's many steps to it. It's not. You know, you mentioned the 10-year overnight success. Sometimes it's 20. Sometimes it and success is measured in different ways, right, and I know that's one of the things that you help people with on their journey is defining what success is. We're not going to do that dive today, but certainly the one thing that I wanted to mention when you were mentioning the quote there was, I remember being in Toastmasters and I was teaching loosely teaching people how to be funny. So some basic humorous things you can do, and it was the rule of three, the two things, and the third one is the punchline, right. So I gave the analogy of three things. Every entrepreneur needs passion, perseverance and a job because that's really what you need.

Carl: 8:03

See there, therefore, the comedy lessons worked, but but you do. You really need to be able to know that. Hey, when you're stepping into this arena, it's not that overnight success. You might get lucky, but it's going to be a journey and embrace it. And I attune it to podcasting because there are so many people that come into the podcasting space and maybe you've met some of them along the way that think I start a podcast and all of a sudden, the podcast heavens will open and I will be the next Joe Rogan or the next Seth, whoever it is I'm going to. I'm going to be extremely successful in this space with 11 billion listeners and everything will be fine. And I'll be relaxing on my you know 144 foot yacht, uh, doing my podcast episodes from there, right, just like entrepreneurship, that's typically not the journey of most podcasters.

Dave: 8:50

And the stats bear that out right. I don't know what the average number of podcast episodes are, but I think it's something in the low single digits or maybe high single digits, like eight or ten or twelve podcasts episodes, and then they're. It's not working.

Carl: 9:07

I'm not getting there and it's like eating 10 salads and saying those 10 salads I'm eating haven't allowed me to release, you know, those 25 pounds that I really want to let go of, and then you just quit. There's a journey, there's a process, and part of it, I believe, in the podcasting space anyways, and I want to talk a little about community a little later on. But part of it is understanding, and this is one of the things you work on, have worked on a lot in your business. Life is is the core values, and even a podcast has core values, but there's a right way to use them in your company and there's a right way to use them in a podcast.

Dave: 9:49

That's right? Yeah, there, definitely is. I think a lot of it starts in. Something that you and I were talking about before is what we used to call it in Seth Godin terms was is what's it for and who's it for?

Dave: 9:58

If you don't know what it's for, I don't want to have a podcast. Because I want to, because everybody has a podcast. Anybody that's anybody has a podcast, right? So that's why I should have a podcast. Might not be the greatest reason to have a podcast. It's for anybody who wants to know, okay. But if it's for everybody, it's probably for nobody.

Dave: 10:16

So when you think about your core values as a person and then you say, hey, I care about investing in other people and I'm willing to put my time into other people, okay, well, now I've had these experiences and I'm willing to invest my time, what does that look like? The podcast is a tactic that fits into a larger strategy. The strategy is how do I share what I've learned and bring other people along in the process? So one tactic is to write a blog and one tactic is to have a podcast, and another is to people say you don't need one. I disagree, but those mission and purpose and core values can be so transformative in helping us stay the course for the thing, because we know why we're doing it. We know why it's important.

Carl: 11:22

And it needs to align. So, whatever your messaging is in your business and it doesn't matter what level of business you're at If you've been very successful in business, you're a high level CEO and you're rocking it out every single year, great. Your messaging for your podcast still needs to reflect your vision, mission, values, goals of your business. Otherwise, can you imagine McDonald's having a podcast? As an example, mcdonald's having a podcast that talks about we're going to be the leaders in you know, Kansas City steaks Not exactly what they're known for. You know what I mean.

Dave: 11:57

Yeah, well, that's being and that's complicated because there's being on brand right and then the long arc of who you are and what you're here to do. You have to be aligned and that's the big mistake that I see a lot of people making with their core values is they have the core values and they put them over here and they have very little influence on the day-to-day decisions that the owner, the founder, the CEO, managing director, whatever that those people are making. They don't inform the choices that they make on a day-to-day basis. And those choices that they make on a day-to-day basis and those choices that you make on a day-to-day basis, those are the walking out of the core values. If you're not making those decisions, they probably aren't core values, and we need to go back and ask ourselves the question whether those core values are actually what drive us.

Carl: 12:45

Yeah, yeah, 100%. And the reason why we're talking about this too, is when we talk about what a podcast can do for a business, a brand, an individual's credibility or a business's credibility, there's an extension piece. I'm in a small pool, I say 10 years ago because the podcasting pool was still very small then. I'm in a small pool of people who have shows probably less than 500,000 shows back then. Now it's into the millions, but I'm in this pool of people that have a show, listen to my show, and that's what people did. People listen to shows. But there's an extension of that and that's the community building piece. Now that can also go back to what are your core values as to why do you want this community? What is the?

Dave: 13:43

community going to be for and how is it going to be impactful? Not just to you you're the person building the community but to purpose, and that purpose is driving you to have a podcast. And that podcast is aligned with the purpose not just driving you to it, but it's aligned with the purpose. Let's say it's sharing the experiences that you've had, and the reason that you're sharing those experiences is so that somebody else can get a leg up. They can go faster or further because of something that maybe they could learn from you. Then it's a natural extension to build a community of people who want those same things. It's what Seth Godin calls people like us doing things like this. I'm kind of a Seth fanboy, I guess you could say.

Carl: 14:27

I know right, it's three. I think it's two for sure.

Dave: 14:29

To be fair, I did some work in the Akimbo workshop communities and they were. Those were pretty powerful experiences in community and it influences a lot of what I do. But I also believe that Seth has a different way of seeing the modern marketing approach and I think it's worthwhile for everybody to consider whether it's a podcast or whether building a tech solution. It doesn't really matter because we have to tell the right stories to the right people. But the point that I was making there was that if you're trying to transfer what you know or to offer different ways of seeing things, it's a naturally following activity to build a community of people who care about that, Because now you can amplify that, the effectiveness of the thing.

Dave: 15:17

I don't care about being efficient. I care about being effective, and if I can be efficient along the way, that's great. But I'm more willing to look at things that are going to help me be more effective, and so if a community is going to help me be more effective at accomplishing the purpose for which I am doing any of these things, then building a community is great and it also has the benefit to me of creating support for me and my thing that I'm doing. Entrepreneurship can be a very lonely thing. A podcast can be a pretty lonely thing because it's not interacting with a bunch of people, it's one-on-one. Or if it's a solo podcast, it's just you talking to a camera and a mic and you don't know if anybody's getting any value out of it or not. But with a community you start to begin to see the effect of that and with more people in that community it can begin to amplify and all kinds of great things can come out of it that you didn't even expect.

Carl: 16:08

I think it's developing too, when you position it the right way, that know, like and trust factor here and where we are right now is there's so much of a push towards the know, like and trust factor and the number of touch points that are needed before somebody actually makes a purchase into your products or services, whatever they are, Probably because it's such a cluttered, loud, bright, blinding landscape of messaging.

Dave: 16:41

Yeah, there are so many people I call it shouting. Linkedin is an example an example to a lesser degree from a professional standpoint. We're talking about B2B or B2C sales kind of stuff. There's so much shouting that's happening. Here's the way to do it, here's the way to do it, here's I've found the way to do it. And you find these people and you can literally take one recommendation and the other recommendation and they say the opposite things and it's really really hard for people to process all of that and come out with what should I do?

Dave: 17:12

But when you're in a community that's focused on doing things a particular way, you cut out a lot of that noise and then you create more conversations, that connection. The community is all about connection and the connection to your point, about know, like and trust. That's how things get done. We have to communicate well. We can't communicate well if there's a whole lot of noise. When we get rid of the noise, we're communicating, we're connecting, we're finding out what people really need and then we can be generous with our offer, which is hey, I think this might work for you because I now have a better understanding of what it is that you're trying to accomplish and there's alignment between this thing. What would it look like if we did this together? And it's a whole different world. And it only happens because you cut out all the noise by putting a little community ring around it, of people like us that do things like this and we know, like and trust each other 100%.

Carl: 18:07

And there's a reason why the you know very well and high flute, you know thought leaders have built communities over the years. You know the Seth Godin's, the John Assaraf's, the Tony Robbins is because they recognize the power. Yeah, okay, they've been at it so long that they don't need to do much to get people to come to an event. But it wasn't an easy. It was probably a slog in the beginning for all of them. If you look at the history of them, it wasn't something that they were just born into. They had to work at it and now they're reaping the rewards because they built it and they've created that value based on what's important to them, to the core.

Dave: 18:45

Yeah, there's no question that it takes a lot of effort, a lot of intentional effort, and there are mistakes to make along the way and some of those folks that you mentioned, they may have had a little bit of a leg up, you know. They may have been in the right place at the right time where they you know they had an exit or they were in a position where they didn't have to worry as much about income right now from a podcast or from a community or from a sale of a course or something like that. They had the ability to build a network over time. For the rest of us, I think it's a very clear picture of what we're trying, the change we're trying to bring into the world, the change we're trying to bring into the world, and how do we create a smaller set of people that want the same things, that we can then move forward together and solve that problem for them, and that just. There's just no question that that takes time, yeah.

Carl: 19:39

And time, energy, a team when you're ready as you're expanding. If you're a solopreneur, okay, it might take some time to get there, but definitely it does take time and enjoy the journey when you're doing that, because the last thing you want to do is not enjoy the journey, be burnt out and be the CEO that's struggling to perform because you've just put so many things on a plate that is unachievable to digest.

Dave: 20:06

Yeah, there's a lot of.

Dave: 20:08

I've been recently getting into looking into some of the brain science and I'm going to be Andy Huberman and those guys, but you know, just been really, really interested in the connection that you mentioned. You know, enjoy it while it's in the journey, but you know, what happens is a lot of times we get into this threat matrix in our brain and we start to get into the fight or flight and most people don't realize this. But there's something that precedes fight or flight, there's something that kicks off the adrenal cycle as you go into sort of the brainstem, which is this isn't working, I start to panic and I don't have a whole lot more time. I'm looking at my runway and now we start doing all kinds of other not helpful things, and so it can be a real challenge to enjoy that process as you go along. And so I think there's another element of community, which is where the people you're serving, but there's also the community of the people who are doing things like you are doing, and that's a different kind of community 100%.

Carl: 21:15

I'm very blessed to be a member of the Canadian Association of Professional Speakers, similar to the NSA, which is basically a community. It's a community of professionals. You need that support, though, even if for no other reason just to have checkpoints every now and again to be reminded that you're doing okay, you're on a journey, it's all good. Failing forward is okay. All of those things that if you're not in that community and this is above and beyond your typical coffee clutch networking type this is a higher level, or a level of people who you would consider to be your peers, who are there to support you, and that's where community is also extremely important.

Dave: 21:56

Yeah, I agree with that. That's the support, and it's not just about telling you. You know the aphorisms of you're good enough, smart enough and doggone it, I like you.

Carl: 22:07

But it's I remember that, I remember that. Just to say, I remember that Stuart Smalley right.

Dave: 22:11

I don't remember it.

Dave: 22:12

I just know that it was a thing a few minutes ago in my life. But it's also that ability to support and share and you know, here's some things that I found it might work for you. It might not work for you. What are you doing? There's so many different elements of support that you can leverage that will help you as you are on that journey, to enjoy the journey and not get into so much of a panic so that when you're building in your other community, your externally facing community that it can, you can show up with generosity, with empathy, with new ideas up in what we call the cortex of your brain, where your higher thinking is.

Dave: 22:52

If you think about that as a balance, almost like a barbell, you don't want one to get too heavy or too light. You want to try to keep them in general and balanced. And the only way you know that is based on when you stop and you have your one-on-one with yourself and you ask how am I feeling about this? Or you ask somebody near you, like your spouse or your kids, like, how do you think work's going for me? And they're like oh man, you are stressed out of your gourd. Okay, I probably am out of balance. So how do I get it back into balance, and borrowing input from other people can be really, really valuable.

Carl: 23:29

Huge value. Also, of huge value has been this conversation today, Dave. Oh my goodness, we could probably just keep going.

Dave: 23:36

We could but I won't.

Carl: 23:39

Just so we can allow the listeners to digest and absorb some of what you've shared. You have some great resources for people to pass along to, to help them on their journey.

Dave: 23:50

Yeah, I think it's good to just pay attention to this question, like who is it for and what's it for? And if you think about those two things and then you start wrapping them, as you said, in the core values, that's going to go such a long way to helping you come up with the right strategy and the right tactics for moving forward on the goals that you are set out to do your podcast for in the first place. And if you don't have them, well, now's a great time as any to stop and think about what those look like and what changes would happen. And, as a result of doing that, how much more effective could you be if you stopped and allowed those things to integrate?

Carl: 24:30

Paravelcom is where you can find out a heck of a lot more information about Dave and the folks that he serves, and if this has been of any value to you, I'm assuming it has it's been of great value to me, that's for sure. Definitely check him out. All of this information is in the show notes. To me, that's for sure. Definitely check him out. All of this information is in the show notes. Dave Bates wow, what an amazing conversation. Thank you so much for being my guest today.

Dave: 24:50

And I'm super stoked that we had the opportunity to talk about this.

Carl: 24:59

And thank you for joining us today. Special thanks to our producer and production lead, Dom Carillo, our music guru, Nathan Simon, and the person who works the arms all of our arms, actually my trusty assistant, Stephanie Gafoor. If you like what you heard today, leave us a comment and a review and be sure to share it with your friends. If you don't like what you heard, please share it with your enemies. Oh, and if you have a suggestion of someone who you think would make an amazing guest on the show, let us know about it. Drop show let us know about it. Drop us an email askcarl@ carlspeaks. ca. Don't forget to follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter as well. You'll find all those links in the show notes. And if you're ready to take the plunge and join the over 3 million people who have said yes to podcasting, let's have a conversation. We'll show you the simplest way to get into the podcasting space, because, after all, we're podcast. Solutions made simple. We'll catch you next time.