I was futzing around with my new podcast today. Seeing how many people have downloaded it in its first month live, thinking about who I’m going to interview next, and moaning about the lack of podcast reviews on Itunes.

To be clear, there are two reviews on Itunes. However, if you read these “reviews”, and are even mildly conscious, it is pretty clear that the reviewers know me.

Truth be told, the two people who have given my reviews are actually so close to me that I can guarantee that even if I were to publish podcasts that contained nothing but the audio recording of me toasting a bagel they would declare such recordings “brilliant!” and “inspired!”.

Yes, I am lucky to have such people in my life. I am. The kind of people that see I publish a podcast and go “review” it even though they probably haven’t listened to it for more than five seconds and are basing their entire review on the fact that they were my bridesmaid. Or something like that.

Sadly for you, the potential podcast listener, are not so lucky that these people are in my life.

Why?

Because they do not offer honest reviews of my podcasting efforts, nor give you any real insight into why or why not you should listen to my podcast.

To fix this situation, I need honest podcast reviews.

And herein lies the problem.

So, How Can You Get People to Review Your Podcast? 

As I think about it, the key to getting honest reviews on your podcast and the key to getting always-grinning reviews from your BFFS are one and the same. You have to ask people.

The dividing line – however — is who you ask.

If I ask my BFFs, I can expect them to be nice. I cannot expect them, however, to be at all discerning or anonymous (your friends, as opposed to mine, might have an easier time pretending to be people that don’t know you and that are actually offering an honest opinion. Mine, however, like to use their real names, gush unendingly, and then say “see u later hot stuff!” at the end of their critiques.)

If I ask you — my blog readers — I have at least a shot in heck that your reviews might be a) based on actually listening to the podcast, and b) honest.

So, I ask you: Will You Rate My Podcast?