✊ The tide is turning
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Hi Friends, This week, we’ve been exploring the idea of Craft as one of the defining audience and customer attractors going forward. If you missed the first two essays in this mini series, you can find them here and here. To summarize where we’re at so far:
To lean into the slower, deeper, more nuanced world of Craft. Which podcasting—as a long-form, "intent-based" (ie. not algorithmically "recommended for you") medium—is perfectly positioned to excel at. As I’ve spent more time thinking about Craft this summer, I’ve be surprised to find myself drawn to more time- and labour-intensive modes of creation. Scripting my podcast episodes long-hand, for example, before transcribing them into my digital tools. Pen and paper. Queue cards. Cork boards. Cutting up and colouring. Glue, even some glitter. Tactile. Analog. Low-fidelity. All of it is inherently, intentionally inefficient. It turns out, I’m not the only one who’s been leaning into less efficient means of production. Alison, a long-time reader, replied to Monday’s essay saying: “I had been hiring a podcast editor for two years, but went back to editing my podcast myself this year. It has been slower, but very creatively fulfilling, and I've received much more unsolicited positive feedback from listeners about the recent episodes.” This reflects a growing trend I’m seeing with my clients, where many of them are becoming more heavily involved in the production processes they previously outsourced. Sure, they might still outsource aspects of their editing... But only after they’d taken a hatchet to the initial recording and cut out big chunks of the raw recording to improve the coherence, value density, and pacing. Or after they’d written and rewritten the script for their solo episodes four times to get it right. Far from growth, marketing, or conversion strategies, what many of these clients value most is spending a couple hours at a time deconstructing and reviewing their last episode together to figure out how they could have improved the framing, sequencing, hooks, and pacing. Or mapping out an upcoming episode around these principles in advance. These are not people with an abundance of time on their hands. They’re parents, partners, CEOs, Founders, and Solo Biz Owners with frankly a whole lot more pressure and demands on their time and attention than I have. And yet, they make space and time for Craft. The obvious outcome of this attention to Craft is a better finished product. One that—like Alison—has listeners reaching out and commenting with some version of the following statement: “I don’t know what’s different, but the show has been really good recently.” In many cases, this subtle shift in listener experience leads to monthly listenership growth of 50%, 100%, or even 200%—all without any additional promotion—as existing casual listeners tune in more regularly. The thresholds, it seems, between Casual Consumer → Regular Consumer, and Regular Consumer → Super Consumer are razor-thin. The difference is in the details. The more impactful outcome of approaching your work with a sense of Craft, however, is how it trains you to spot the small, subtle distinctions in the rest of your work. In your market. In your positioning. In your ability to discern the tides and trends of the world and your industry, separate the signal from the noise, and synthesize it into a coherent, compelling point of view that stands out and rallies your people around you. Over time, the impact of your awareness of and attention to these details compounds. A series of micro edges over your less Craft-oriented competitors who are content to follow trends rather than lead them. It’s not an accident that most of the most interesting, insightful, enduring, articulate, and attractive thought-leaders have strong, craft-oriented creative practices.
The list goes on and on. People who seem to consistently see where things are heading before the rest of us… and then use their work to explore it. It’s hard to catch the waves when you’re not paying attention. Ultimately, Craft is not just a way of approaching our work but a way of approaching our lives. An ability to notice the things others miss and find their hidden meaning. “To see a World in a Grain of Sand and a Heaven in a Wild Flower, hold Infinity in the palm of your hand and Eternity in an hour,” as William Blake articulated beautifully. In a world of noise, slop, and banality, this is our edge, I think. To see, to, feel, to embody life fully. And then, through our work, to help our audiences do the same. Oh, and one more thing. The William Blake quote reminded me of this. I found it after crawling through a window in an 800-year-old castle, down a rickety ladder to a sliver of a path leading down a valley untouched by time. At the bottom, tucked behind a house-sized boulder in the face of a sheer rock wall, a tunnel. Through the blackness. Through the rock. Through the cold. To sunlight. Warmth. And the most spectacular view you've ever seen. A bay. A beach. A walled medieval village perched on the side of a mountain. And perhaps, more spectacular than all of it, this world within a shell. Life is full of mysteries, awe, and wonder, friends. It's our job to notice it.
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