Workshops no longer available. Consider my on-demand course, Growable Shows>

Make Their Favorite Podcast

Online, interactive, cohort-based workshops. Eight weeks of doing real work on your real show, together. Launch a new podcast or level-up an existing show, all with one goal in mind: Make someone’s favorite podcast. If you are a maker, a marketer, an entrepreneur, or a leader or teacher of any kind, and if you want to make a difference in the lives of the people you aim to serve, come learn how to use a podcast to inspire, rally, grow your community, and spark change. You’ll leave with a documented strategy, fully-built and reviewed content, a repeatable system to keep learning and growing, and access to our alumni group where you’ll keep interacting with your cohort and meet new peers who support and push you.

Online, Interactive, Cohort-Based Experiences

Don’t Make a Podcast. Make a Difference.

(It just happens to be audio.)

The resulting content is a show — one that helps, changes, and inspires your audience. A podcast is the container. Your “show” is the stuff inside, and how you turn your vision as showrunner into something tangible and transformative for the listener. Your audience doesn’t want another commodity container. They want the stuff inside. They want you to make something they care about. They want a show.

“It’s mind blowing, especially the visual, authentic framework. I was struggling to find a real connection with my audience and didn’t know how to make my show unique. Now I have a clear path and feel in control. I understand not only how people connect to podcasts in general but also how to reverse engineer from my business to create a great show.” — Rod Pancine, web designer and consultant

“What will be different when I’m done?”

You’ll know how to make your audience’s favorite show. You’ll walk away with the mentality, the skills, and the system you can use to consistently earn trust and love, to build deeper relationships with each and every person who listens to your show, and to genuinely make a difference — for your company, your career, and your community.

“What does the workshop feel like?”

David Bowie once told fellow artists to wade out into the water just beyond where they’re comfortable being, just slightly out of their depth. “And when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom,” he said, “you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting.” That’s what we help you do in this workshop.

We provide a safe place, a clear system, and a supportive group to push you slightly out of your depth, and it’s right there that you’ll do something exciting. We talk about “breakthroughs” and “unlocks,” not “best practices” or “hacks.” You’re on the hook to put in work, but if you do, you’ll go further, faster, than you thought possible before.

“What will I experience inside the workshop?”

Most shows, especially those built for marketing purposes, are commodities. We help you elevate them from transactional, forgettable types of content to something transformational — proprietary journeys your audiences subscribe to and stick with. We do so through a combination of the following:

A repeatable process that addresses the 4 most crucial concerns of any show: say something that matters, get people to the end, deepen your relationship, and avoid stagnation.

75% creating, 25% consuming. This is not a course. This is guided work, done in a safe place, with supportive peers.

Connecting with and helping your peers in the cohort. Others are with you on your journey, and you’re with them on theirs. The collective power, especially in our group discussions, is unlike any solo endeavor, or even the typical coworker or friend offering feedback.

You’ll also receive invitations to a 1-on-1 with Jay, plus his weekly office hours, as well as invites to optional Special Guest discussions with world-class creators and marketers who give inside looks at their craft and answer your questions.

The 4 Anchors: Charting and developing a show’s strengths and which elements are capable of sparking word-of-mouth.

“Does this work?”

We can say with confidence, yes. You’ll do real work on your real show and improve how you see, think, and create.

Creativity doesn’t mean “big.” It’s just the sum total of lots of little choices, implemented through constant repetition and reinvention. In short, creating a great show (or anything creative) is about practice. We ensure your practice is pointed in the right direction, and equip you with the ideas and tools you can use to improve more quickly, and in a safe place. We can say with confidence: this works.

More specifically, this works for two reasons:

Reason #1: We focus on foundational skills, ideas, and pieces of your show (and your abilities to execute them), not short-term tactics or hacks, which offer value that decreases as time passes or competition increases. We focus on YOU, because if you’re better, everyone around you benefits too.

Reason #2: We focus on the things you can’t simply google, both in terms of the knowledge we offer and the way it’s delivered. Information is the cheapest commodity of the Information Age. We focus on connection, access, encouragement, and practice.

“What will I leave with? (Deliverables)”

This workshop is about lasting change. That means you can do everything on your own once the workshop is over. The more you use what you learned in the workshop, the more valuable the ideas become in your work.

You’ll walk away with…

1. A completed, fully reviewed and documented strategy for your show, containing elusive but crucial ideas like your show’s premise, episode rundown, audience focus, your logline and empathy statement, and more. This is your “true north” and will help you stay focused and scale your efforts to teammates as needed.

2. A repeatable, visual system to guide your show long after the workshop to ensure your show and skills always improve. You’ll also receive exercises and challenges you can implement to keep pushing yourself.

3. A completed, fully reviewed episode representing the best version of your show, whether it’s a new podcast or refreshing an existing show.

4. Access to our alumni group to stay connected with your cohort and with others from previous workshops.

“What is the time commitment?”

It’s up to you, but most students invest 4-6 hours per week, across all 8 weeks. You’ll watch some video lessons, but mostly write and articulate your ideas and strategy, execute projects, and discuss and improve quickly with the group. After the workshop, you’ll be able to run faster than before.

As one workshop student put it, “If I did this alone, I would have wasted two years figuring it out.”

You’ll also have the option to attend any or all of the following:

1. A personal, one-on-one strategy session with Jay.

2. Live discussions with world-class podcasters, creators, and marketers to dive deeper into specific skills and topics, like premise development, interview technique, and narrative-style show production.

3. Recurring office hours to work through specific challenges with Jay.

“What if I fall behind?”

Fortunately, you can’t really fall behind, since you have access to the entirety of the material throughout the workshop and well after it’s over. You can always go at your own pace. That said, students who get the most value show up each week, make forward progress in messy fashion, and benefit from the group’s collective creativity, ideas, and support.

Going at your own pace provides a sort of “linear” return on your investment. When you add in the interaction with each other, the ideas you receive, and the benefit of needing to teach others what you’re thinking and creating, your progress looks more like an exponential curve.

“What does it cost?”

$1,500 (USD) per student.*

*Many organizations will reimburse you. Be sure to ask your team lead or HR rep.

Special Prices / Bulk Rates on Offer:

Full-time students/doctoral candidates, science researchers, activists, and teachers, can join free.

Nonprofit leaders and marketers can join at a discount.

We also offer discounts for teams sending at least 2 students to the same workshop.

For any of these, please contact jay@mshowrunners.com.