Hey, welcome back to the Life Coach Launchpad. My name’s BJ, and I’m here every week talking to you about all the online business things that, as it turns out, need to happen in order to have a successful life coaching business. I’m a business coach. I love to help life coaches make more money, get more clients, have more fun, and to do what they love to do, what they’re meant to do, and that’s coaching.

So, let’s dive right in.

I don’t always pay attention to all the latest algorithm changes. Whether that’s individual social platforms, podcast apps, YouTube, you name it. I’m aware of it, and sometimes I can see a blip here and there, but it doesn’t normally change my, it does not change my strategy. And that’s because I believe that the goal of every algorithm is to get users to continue consuming content on their platform.

That’s actually a good thing. It sounds very self centered, and it is, but it’s a good thing. It’s predictable. The way that they do that is to use an algorithm to determine what is good content, what is bad. They’re finding the good content that their users want to keep watching. So, if you stay in tune with what your audience needs and deliver that information, you will get views, engagement, clicks, or whatever your calls to action is.

Thanks. I understand that my view is a bit optimistic because I’m casting big tech in kind of a positive light. That they’re helpful. That they’re just trying to find good content for us. But I would also argue that it’s realistic in the sense that they’re also serving their own purposes by trying to get people to stay on their platform.

If they get people to stay on their platform, they can charge more for their advertising. They get more advertising dollars. What this means is that there are very few, if any, algorithm changes that actually matter to life coaches. As long as you’re putting out helpful content, you don’t need to worry about the latest algorithm change.

Your job is to create great content. The likes, the engagement, the calls to action will come. And that was true, and mostly still is, but there is an algorithm change that broke my model of the tech universe. Actually, it’s not an algorithm change. It’s, that’s just the best, that’s the best, like, analogy that I can come up with.

It’s how Apple Podcasts triggers a podcast download. Apple Podcast is the app that is the default player of podcasts on all iPhones. In the US, iPhone users account for 59 percent of all smartphones, so that’s, that’s a lot of people. What Apple did was they changed when new episodes are automatically downloaded.

It used to be that when you subscribed to a podcast, it would download every new episode ongoing, forever, until you unsubscribed. Even if you’ve found a new podcast. subscribed and then went away never to listen to that podcast ever again, it would continue automatically downloading all the new episodes.

And that fills up storage space on your device as well as trigger downloads for the host of the podcast. It comes up as a download, but it’s really not a listen. The change that rolled out with iOS 17 was that Apple podcasts would no longer automatically download new episodes if you haven’t listened to the most recent five episodes within the last 15 days.

So, if 15 days has gone by and you haven’t listened to the most recent five episodes of a particular podcast, your Apple Podcasts app will stop automatically downloading new episodes. You’ll be able to see if your automatic downloads have paused by opening the app and finding a show that you’ve listened to.

Previously followed, but haven’t listened to in a while, you’ll see a pause symbol in the upper right corner. When you go back and start listening to a podcast again, only new podcasts will be downloaded. Previously, all downloads not previously downloaded would be downloaded. Additionally, Apple Podcasts also stopped automatically downloading older episodes that are freshly published.

This can happen if a podcaster uploads an old episode or Or episodes as part of an archive where the date attached to it is older than the current date of publish. Previously, Apple Podcasts would have downloaded this older episode. With iOS 17, episodes older than 7 days will not be automatically downloaded.

Hopefully I haven’t made your eyes totally glaze over. If I have, come back to me. You can see how these changes, especially the first change, pausing automatic downloads, can drastically affect the total number of downloads of a particular podcast, and really all podcasts in general across the board. I saw it very obviously show up in the downloads of a client of mine, and it was very worrying.

That is how we make decisions in that business. iOS 17 rolled out in September of 23, and the downloads started dropping immediately. in that month and leveled out again starting in February of 24. She used to regularly see about 50, 000 downloads per month. She was very proud of that. After the drop, she was seeing about 15, 000 downloads per month.

This change is going to hit more established podcasters much harder than new ones. She’s been podcasting for six years now, so she felt the full brunt of it. So there must’ve been a lot of people who were following her, who were subscribed to her podcast, but weren’t listening to it. It’s a very demoralizing feeling having your downloads just be gone.

Plummet, absolutely plummet like that. Your first reaction is going to be to panic. I promise. Normally, a substantial drop in downloads like that should be a very clear indicator that you are doing something wrong, but you’re not. My client prided herself on her high number of downloads. She made changes to her business based on if her downloads were going up or down.

Fortunately, I was able to figure this out with a simple Google search. This was turned out to be an easy one. Now, I’m reporting this much after the fact. I’m letting you know just in case you have been podcasting for a while and haven’t heard the news. If so, you can breathe a sigh of relief. You have done nothing wrong.

I also chose this topic. It’s the first in this mini series of outside forces on our coaching business because it still goes to show that continuing to make good content still would have gotten you through this issue. That’s really the moral of this story. And all the stories that I’m going to get to in this series is that you can get through almost any issue or crisis by making continuously improving content, make good content, and then improve it, make better content.

You could have gotten through this issue by continuing to improve your content. It still wouldn’t have felt great. You probably would have felt like you’re doing your best to improve your content and the downloads keep decreasing. It would have worked. If you would like help increasing the downloads that on your podcast to get the word out about your coaching.

You can schedule a free mini session on my website, BJButler. com. I’ll walk you through how to increase downloads, get more consults and sign more clients. I’ll talk to you next week for our next outside business force in this mini series. See ya.

Hey, welcome back to the Life Coach Launchpad. My name’s BJ, and I’m here every week talking to you about all the online business things that, as it turns out, need to happen in order to have a successful life coaching business. I’m a business coach. I love to help life coaches make more money, get more clients, have more fun, and to do what they love to do, what they’re meant to do, and that’s coaching.

So, let’s dive right in.

I don’t always pay attention to all the latest algorithm changes. Whether that’s individual social platforms, podcast apps, YouTube, you name it. I’m aware of it, and sometimes I can see a blip here and there, but it doesn’t normally change my, it does not change my strategy. And that’s because I believe that the goal of every algorithm is to get users to continue consuming content on their platform.

That’s actually a good thing. It sounds very self centered, and it is, but it’s a good thing. It’s predictable. The way that they do that is to use an algorithm to determine what is good content, what is bad. They’re finding the good content that their users want to keep watching. So, if you stay in tune with what your audience needs and deliver that information, you will get views, engagement, clicks, or whatever your calls to action is.

Thanks. I understand that my view is a bit optimistic because I’m casting big tech in kind of a positive light. That they’re helpful. That they’re just trying to find good content for us. But I would also argue that it’s realistic in the sense that they’re also serving their own purposes by trying to get people to stay on their platform.

If they get people to stay on their platform, they can charge more for their advertising. They get more advertising dollars. What this means is that there are very few, if any, algorithm changes that actually matter to life coaches. As long as you’re putting out helpful content, you don’t need to worry about the latest algorithm change.

Your job is to create great content. The likes, the engagement, the calls to action will come. And that was true, and mostly still is, but there is an algorithm change that broke my model of the tech universe. Actually, it’s not an algorithm change. It’s, that’s just the best, that’s the best, like, analogy that I can come up with.

It’s how Apple Podcasts triggers a podcast download. Apple Podcast is the app that is the default player of podcasts on all iPhones. In the US, iPhone users account for 59 percent of all smartphones, so that’s, that’s a lot of people. What Apple did was they changed when new episodes are automatically downloaded.

It used to be that when you subscribed to a podcast, it would download every new episode ongoing, forever, until you unsubscribed. Even if you’ve found a new podcast. subscribed and then went away never to listen to that podcast ever again, it would continue automatically downloading all the new episodes.

And that fills up storage space on your device as well as trigger downloads for the host of the podcast. It comes up as a download, but it’s really not a listen. The change that rolled out with iOS 17 was that Apple podcasts would no longer automatically download new episodes if you haven’t listened to the most recent five episodes within the last 15 days.

So, if 15 days has gone by and you haven’t listened to the most recent five episodes of a particular podcast, your Apple Podcasts app will stop automatically downloading new episodes. You’ll be able to see if your automatic downloads have paused by opening the app and finding a show that you’ve listened to.

Previously followed, but haven’t listened to in a while, you’ll see a pause symbol in the upper right corner. When you go back and start listening to a podcast again, only new podcasts will be downloaded. Previously, all downloads not previously downloaded would be downloaded. Additionally, Apple Podcasts also stopped automatically downloading older episodes that are freshly published.

This can happen if a podcaster uploads an old episode or Or episodes as part of an archive where the date attached to it is older than the current date of publish. Previously, Apple Podcasts would have downloaded this older episode. With iOS 17, episodes older than 7 days will not be automatically downloaded.

Hopefully I haven’t made your eyes totally glaze over. If I have, come back to me. You can see how these changes, especially the first change, pausing automatic downloads, can drastically affect the total number of downloads of a particular podcast, and really all podcasts in general across the board. I saw it very obviously show up in the downloads of a client of mine, and it was very worrying.

That is how we make decisions in that business. iOS 17 rolled out in September of 23, and the downloads started dropping immediately. in that month and leveled out again starting in February of 24. She used to regularly see about 50, 000 downloads per month. She was very proud of that. After the drop, she was seeing about 15, 000 downloads per month.

This change is going to hit more established podcasters much harder than new ones. She’s been podcasting for six years now, so she felt the full brunt of it. So there must’ve been a lot of people who were following her, who were subscribed to her podcast, but weren’t listening to it. It’s a very demoralizing feeling having your downloads just be gone.

Plummet, absolutely plummet like that. Your first reaction is going to be to panic. I promise. Normally, a substantial drop in downloads like that should be a very clear indicator that you are doing something wrong, but you’re not. My client prided herself on her high number of downloads. She made changes to her business based on if her downloads were going up or down.

Fortunately, I was able to figure this out with a simple Google search. This was turned out to be an easy one. Now, I’m reporting this much after the fact. I’m letting you know just in case you have been podcasting for a while and haven’t heard the news. If so, you can breathe a sigh of relief. You have done nothing wrong.

I also chose this topic. It’s the first in this mini series of outside forces on our coaching business because it still goes to show that continuing to make good content still would have gotten you through this issue. That’s really the moral of this story. And all the stories that I’m going to get to in this series is that you can get through almost any issue or crisis by making continuously improving content, make good content, and then improve it, make better content.

You could have gotten through this issue by continuing to improve your content. It still wouldn’t have felt great. You probably would have felt like you’re doing your best to improve your content and the downloads keep decreasing. It would have worked. If you would like help increasing the downloads that on your podcast to get the word out about your coaching.

You can schedule a free mini session on my website, BJButler. com. I’ll walk you through how to increase downloads, get more consults and sign more clients. I’ll talk to you next week for our next outside business force in this mini series. See ya.