The Visionary Files

9 Thing I Wish I Would've Known Before Starting My Podcast One Year Ago

• Adriane Galea • Episode 87

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One year ago, I started a podcast. (It’ll be FUN, they said!”)

Initially attracted by the thought leadership and speaking aspects offered by this medium, what really appealed to me was finding a viable way to build a community and grow my business without relying on tons of social media support.

And...it worked! 

That being said -- I could have done some things better. So, I'm using the occasion of our 1-year anniversary to pass along what I've learned along the way!

Whether you have a podcast (or might be thinking about starting one), these are the 9 most important things hindsight has granted me full view of from 1 year in. A little mini-podcast masterclass, if you will, and a GIANT expression of my gratitude to everyone who has come, and stayed (and subscribed!). Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.  

Quick overview of what we cover: 

  • Why learning the tech is the least of it all
  • The three ways I went wrong with my launch strategy
  • Why ‘clear is always better than clever’ when it comes to choosing show names and episode titles
  • All the small details that make or break an episode’s (and really the show’s) success
  • How to choose what kind of help you need to keep recording (and publishing!) consistently
  • How to prepare for the slow growth that podcasts tend to track on
  • How to use your audience behavior to shape your episodes
  • Why guests are not going to help you the way that you think they might
  • How to reverse engineer your episode CTAs
  • How to know if it’s all worth it, on a personal level (and professionally, because data!)
  • Why building a podcast has felt like building a meeting house in all the best ways, and why knowledge sharing is my own personal theology

RESOURCES: 



LET’S CONNECT: 


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This episode was first published at soulpreneur.co/087

Speaker 1:

like Jerisha Hawke, says that her content is her church, like her free content. She's willing to give it all away for free because that's her church, and that really hit me. So I really wanted to approach it with that stream strategy. I have a lot of respect for that strategy. Welcome to the Scaling Lounge, a podcast for established service-based business owners who believe in working smarter, resting often, playing always and dreaming bigger. I'm your host, adrienne Gallia, and I want to help you create time, financial and lifestyle freedom by scaling with systems, strategy and the support of a team, so that your business is able to grow, with or without you. Let's get to it. So today marks the one-year anniversary of the Scaling Lounge, even though it's been called a couple other things, couple other things and I wanted to use this episode to share the biggest lessons that I've learned along the way for anyone else who either has a podcast or might be thinking about starting one, but also really for anyone who is wanting to build a community off of social media as a way to grow their business. I can't believe that it's already been a year. It's funny when I was like, oh, I'm gonna do like a commemorative Once we hit a year, I'll do a special episode for it. And I sort of like I was I plotted this out, I think months ago, where I was just like I'm gonna put on this date, like I'll put the placeholder in that I think that's probably about a year ago, because I could have sworn that. I started my podcast on October 15th of last year and I'm really good with dates, like I remember. I'm a freak when it comes to dates. I remember everything with numbers and when I went back and looked, turns out, no, it's actually one year to the day, october. What day will it actually be when the stairs, I don't know? October 17th to the day. So it's been one year to the day. So if you happen to be one of the people who were around in that first week where we released I don't know, I think we released seven episodes in the first week. It was a lot seven, eight, nine, 10, a lot of episodes. Thanks for being here and wherever you picked it up along the way, I'm glad that you're here. So let's talk about the nine things that I wish known In the beginning, the nine biggest lessons that I've learned, things that really matter.

Speaker 1:

So, first and foremost, I wanna talk a little bit about why I started the podcast. Absolutely without a doubt, the biggest part of this was I knew that I did not want to be on social media. I had this like when I started in online business. It was during the pendant, like the height of the pandemic, and all I knew was that there was. I had done brick and mortar business for a really long time and then this online business thing. I saw something different and what I was seeing was predominantly everyone who was successful, everyone who was making money. They were all conducting their business with a lot of social media usage, and I don't really like social media.

Speaker 1:

At that point, I had already been off of Facebook for like four years the solidly four years the 2016 American election did me in. That was the end for me no more Facebook and so I had used Instagram personally here and I liked Instagram, but I was like I don't like social media. And the longer that I tried to use social media for my business and it worked, like it was fine, I just hated it. And so I remember I woke up one day and I was like I have already done a lot in business and I didn't use social media for any of it outside of Facebook and Instagram ads. I had been using those forever and ever and I was like so why am I doing? Like business is business, is business. I know that this is possible. So a big part of the podcast was knowing that I had a long-term vision for not needing social media for my business. And that has taken me. This podcast is a year old. It's taken me about a year and a half to get to the point where I don't really need social media in my business. I mean, I use it, but I think if I were to completely leave social media, I don't know that it would have the hugest impact on what I'm doing, and I'm really, really happy to say that.

Speaker 1:

Then the second thing was like, I know that I wanna go in a direction of like thought leadership. That term to me sounds so stuffy, but that term is what it is Like. I know that that's something that I want to. I know that that's something that I want to pursue more. I wanna speak. I love speaking engagements, I love being on stage and speaking, and so I knew that I wanted to develop a platform where I could share my thoughts, et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 1:

Number three I'm really long-winded. You didn't know that I can be long-winded and like I have no problem just rambling to myself clearly and I'm like weird and goofy and podcast people are my people. I've found so and it gives you a sense toward like, if you can handle me on this podcast, like what you see is what you get from me. It doesn't matter if we're in a business meeting, it doesn't matter if you are my client, it doesn't matter if we're just like hanging out casually, if we're just friends. Like what you see is what you get from me all the way across the board. Like I don't have. I just don't have the ability. I think I did when I was younger. I just don't have the ability to like switch on and off the way that I'm presenting myself depending on the room that I'm in. I like I just don't have the patience for it. And so if you can handle my personality on this podcast, then you know what it would be like to work with me. This is more or less how I am. I don't know if you work with me. Tell me if that's true or not, I don't know.

Speaker 1:

Maybe I think, maybe this is a goofier side of me, especially like the joint episodes that I do with Steve like because we have such a at this point, we have such a established rapport Like, probably you get a little bit of a goofier side of me, I don't know, but anyway it gives you a sense of who I am and, interestingly, when I started this I was not a huge fan of the podcasting medium. Like it's really hard. I think I've said this before I don't retain what I listen to very well. I've never been an auditory learner and so I've just never really adapted to podcasting as a way to consume content. But now that I've been doing it consistently for like, really consistently, for a year, I thought by a year I might be at 100 episodes. I'm almost to 90, so I'm really close. But doing it basically twice a week for a year has just made me more in tune to what other podcast producers or podcast hosts are doing and I've grown to really love the medium. So those are the reasons that I got into this and I think this I don't think that this is on I wrote my list out of like.

Speaker 1:

Oh, it's number nine. Okay, I'll save it for last. It's my last thing on the list of like. I'm gonna add this little anecdote in, but it's number nine on my list. So biggest lessons, biggest things I've learned, the things that I wish I would have done.

Speaker 1:

And I want to just point out, before we truly dive into these nine things, that nothing that I have to say here has anything to do with technology, has anything to do with like oh, I chose the right microphone. Oh, the technology setup has to be blah, blah, blah, blah, I like. It has nothing to do with that. You can say with complete confidence that none of that stuff matters. And if you go and take like a start your podcast course, the only reason that anyone is talking about I would recommend using this microphone or that microphone is, I guarantee you, because they're getting affiliate credit, because if you go by that microphone they are getting a kickback from Amazon or wherever. And if they're not disclosing that, then honestly shame on them for that. I don't actually mean shame on them, but they should know. And Amazon makes you check a box that says I will disclose that I'm an affiliate. Anyway, I can get on a real tangent about people not disclosing when they are affiliates to something and it doesn't cost you any extra, but like they should be disclosing it Anyhow, none of this has anything to do with technology.

Speaker 1:

So, number one, your launch strategy is huge. I cannot stress this enough. I had a launch strategy and I wish I would have. I mean, hindsight is always 2020, right, like that's cliche, but it's the truth is. I wish that I would have. I wish that I would have maybe consulted a bit more with people who really knew how to launch a podcast, because I, you know, I broke one of the golden rules of like I observed and interpreted other people's strategy and when, in reality, you don't without actually getting into their brain and being able to ask them questions or being able to listen to them explain their thought process, like you have no idea why they're doing what they're doing at the.

Speaker 1:

At the time when I, when I started this podcast, like there was no way I was investing in anything, it was at the end of a really long stretch of I had been really sick for a long time. It was just it was a bad time. Like I was not I was I probably going, going back and looking at it. Like I don't know if I would go. I feel like words aren't coming out of my mouth properly If I could go back in time and make a different decision to have invested in something to help me launch the podcast, I would still make the choice to not have to not do it Because I think I knew enough about strategy and enough about visibility and enough about the way content media works that I was able to figure out how to do it.

Speaker 1:

But there were other pieces that, like, I think I could have been better equipped. But, given where I was at, knowing my situation, like I know that I made the right choice for myself in not investing. But if I were doing it today, if I were starting my podcast today, where I have a different, a different set of resources, a different amount of resources, I would maybe have the ability to, I would have the ability to invest in something to help do it, then I absolutely would. I absolutely would. But, like when I was doing this, it just didn't make. It didn't make any sense for me that, for me to do that. But your launch strategy is massive, and so the three things that I will say about launch strategy is that that where I went wrong.

Speaker 1:

Number one is that I did not lean on my personal network as much as I could have, because, you like, if you have a community of people that you've built within your, within your business, and that's amazing, but none of them are probably going to care about you and your success and think the things that you're doing are as cool as what your friends and, excuse me, what your friends and family will think. And I don't know why and like. Probably because I don't use social networks and I don't talk. I don't, I don't use the internet to communicate with people that I know, but I did not lean on my personal network to launch my podcast and in hindsight, I would definitely do that differently. I would like a podcast next, in 2024. And that will be a whole different ballgame. Let me tell you. That will be a different ballgame because I know like it's so important to get to deploy like a little army of podcast fanatics, even if they're not your ideal person, but you can start feeding the podcast algorithm. There's not really like it. There is an algorithm, but it's not like the algorithm that I think of when I think about YouTube or or Google or whatever, but to show the podcast gods that there are people listening, there are people downloading, there are people subscribing, there are people who are, who are reviewing all that good stuff. Like get as many people as possible, when you initially launch, to pay attention to what you're doing.

Speaker 1:

Number two record way more than this is all under launch. The second thing is record way more episodes than you think you need. I did that, but I don't think I did it as much as if I had to do it again I would record. I would have recorded even more than I did need, because I I feel like only now am I getting into a groove of like really feeling what it feels like to be ahead of schedule, so that I'm not scrapped. It's ironic because this episode I'm actually recording yesterday. Like when you listen to this, I recorded this yesterday. Because I did it, because I did it partially because I've had a lot of personal stuff going on in my life, but I also did it because I was like I want it to truly be a year before. Like, if it's a, I've had my podcast for a year, like I want it to have been a year anyway. Anyway, I feel like I'm only just now, a year later, getting into a flow of really understanding what it feels like to be ahead of schedule. I've been that way with guest episodes for a long time. Solo episodes are really hard for me, so we're get in the habit of recording way more episodes than you need, especially when you launch, so that you've got a handful of episodes for people to listen to right off the bat.

Speaker 1:

And the third three? The third thing is to mobilize your people, not just your personal network, but your guests, your audience. As much as you can use people to help spread the word, help download, help subscribe, help share, whatever that looks like. Use, use your people. So that's number one. That's the first thing that I wish I could have known in advance is, beyond the launch strategy that I knew to have, those three things were massive. The second thing that I wish I would have known is that the name really matters.

Speaker 1:

I lucked out that the original name of this podcast was sustainable scaling, and that was a. That was a relatively smart name, because what it comes down to is that clear is better than clever, and I would say clear is better than clever in a lot of different ways. I'm probably going to say this more than once, but you don't want your podcast name to be Like I wonder what that is, and unless you have a big, big network. I also don't know that I would write this is I'm not a I'm not a podcast strategist, so I don't know if I would like take this with a grain of salt, but I don't know that I would name my podcast my name, because it doesn't make sense. If someone is just like scrolling to look for new things, they they're not gonna know what it is. They're not gonna know what it, what it actually means and what they're gonna get what if they listen to it, where something like sustainable scaling they know exactly what they're going to get, someone should understand what the show is about and the name should reflect Something that the person actually wants. So sustainable scaling, very clear.

Speaker 1:

And then I went and I screwed it all up by switching the name to the solepreneur show, because that was the name of my business and I wanted congruency around around my brand. And when I tell you, my listenership tanked, tanked when I changed the name and At first I was like I wonder, because at that point Steve had been on. I've got if you're newer to the podcast, you might not know who I'm talking about when I talk about Steve. I've done a lot of episode. We've done 15, 20 episodes together at this point because we're launching a joint project together and it's.

Speaker 1:

I was like I don't think it's Him like just because I'm not bringing new guests on, like why, why are downloads Tanking? I mean tanking like I had started to really see a strong growth trajectory. I could see that it was moving in the right, in the right direction, the direction that I wanted to be heading, and Then all of a sudden, like it started to fall off and I was like at first I thought Steve, if you're listening to this, I'm sorry. At first I was like I wonder if it's because I'm not bringing new guests on. And then that I was like no, it's not that, it's the name. I screwed up when I changed the name because people don't really understand what they're getting, and I talked more about this in a Few episodes ago. I was like the biggest mistake I made that I'm completely changing the trajectory of my brand. The name is something like that. I talked more about this in that episode. But so now I've gone back to the scaling lounge and when I tell you it was an immediate turnaround immediate turnaround, like I can already see numbers going back to when they were, and so that also tells me that it's.

Speaker 1:

Definitely it was not. It was absolutely not. The Guest episode thing absolutely had nothing to do with, like me, choosing to have Steve is the only guest for like months at a time. I think it might have contributed just slightly because it's not like there's anyone new saying like, hey, listen, I was honest, I was on a podcast, come listen, but that was negligible. Like that was a negligible part of the people who were finding the show and I this is, this is my educated guest. Again, I am educated, guess. Again, I am not a podcast strategist.

Speaker 1:

I think it was the name and the decision to change the name and I mean I also changed the artwork back and I think the artwork maybe is more appealing on a broader sense. I don't know what. I don't think it was the artwork, maybe it was the artwork. I think it's the name, the name the scaling lounge indicates it's what somebody wants, like it indicates scaling. But lounge is like oh, it's it's ease, full it's. You know, it's not gonna be like work, work, work, grind, grind, grind. It's more relaxed, it's more I want it to be, it's it's supposed to be a like more human, focused of you know you want to have a life first business too. Anyway, and it's you know, it's also in like the tagline of. Let's see if I can repeat this without looking at it work smarter, work smarter. Rest often play always. Oh, hang on, work. I'm missing one. Anyway, it's fine, I'm. I'll remember my own tagline at some point. But yeah, it signifies like what you're gonna get from the show.

Speaker 1:

So the name matters. Clear is better than clever. Someone should understand what the show is about and the name should reflect something that the person wants. That's number two. The three is. The number three is that Small details are going to make or break you things like the name. I think the name is important enough that that gets its own bullet point, but other small, other details that are clear is better than clever. Someone under someone should understand with what the Thing is going to be about and the name should reflect something that the person is gonna want.

Speaker 1:

That goes beyond just the name. It also applies to episode titles. Episode titles should not be I've. I can see a direct correlation between like, where I have fluffy names For things that are like oh, they're cute, versus names that are very clear and intended to be not like clickbaity. But so for this episode, for example, I started with the name the nine biggest lessons I learned after one year of podcasting and that's a pretty solid title, but I tweaked it to be I don't have this written down to be the nine things I wish I would have known when I started my podcast a year ago. It's a really minor difference, but it it makes a difference. Like small things like that are going to make a difference. The way you title your episodes are going to matter Around someone making the decision. If they don't know you, whether they choose to like, click to listen or add it to their queue or not, it's going to make a difference. The podcast description same thing. If someone like clicks into your podcast not really knowing what your show is about, the, the description should very clearly show them what they're going to get and it should be Distinct around something that they want. Now.

Speaker 1:

This is where, like, we're not trying to appeal to everyone. It's not about universal appeal. Universal appeal, we want to isolate people. We want to alienate people on purpose. That's one of my faith. I've said that for years. It's one of my favorite things to say. We alienate people on purpose. We lovingly alienate people on purpose. You want your. You want your description to be Clear about what someone is going to get and why they would want to listen, rather than like something cute and clever and the first 30 seconds of your audio matter.

Speaker 1:

I don't script myself like I usually write notes out, but I don't script myself by and large, except for the intro, and I deviate from it all the time, like I definitely I'll add to it all beer off, I'll go on an off in a tangent. No one's surprised. But I script the beginning of my episodes because I want them to be punchier. Now I've gotten into that. I've I've more recently gotten into where I told Mackenzie, who edits everything, um, where, like just find the hookiest part of what I'm saying and put it at the beginning, and that took us a minute to get a Flowdown for that. Where I was like I don't know if that was exactly the right, the right bit, like I think I would have chosen something more like X. And then, as we've gone, she's gotten a lot better at picking, like what those opening lines could be, but the first few seconds like it's the same.

Speaker 1:

It's the same way that you wouldn't Want to write like a fluffy headline to a sales page. This is the way. It's the same thing that you want to think about in that sense, the same way that you wouldn't want to put a fluffy title as an email subject line. You want something that's gonna really grab people's attention and you help them understand what they're going to get and capture, capture it immediately. This is turning into a whole podcasting masterclass. I didn't really intend for that to happen, but here I had a lot more thoughts to share, I guess, than I realized. But yeah, you want it to be really really catchy. Clear is better than clever. I said I was probably gonna say it multiple times Clear is better than clever. So, episode title that that deserves its own bullet point. But also or sorry, the the podcast name gets its own bullet point. But also the small details under episode title, podcast description and the first, the first few seconds of the audio are really important.

Speaker 1:

The fourth thing the wish. The fourth thing that I wish I would have known in the beginning is that getting help has saved me. Now. When I was, when I first started, I only had one person helping me with my podcast. I now have two, because my copyrighter also helps with this. So there's Mackenzie. She edits everything and posts it to the podcast host platform. I actually don't know who does what at this point, but Bre writes things. Sometimes I don't know they share responsibility with certain things. I don't know. We got to work out, we've got a system for it and it works out, but I now have two people helping. But I had it was.

Speaker 1:

This was also intentional where, like I could have chosen to invest in something that was like teach me how to launch my podcast, show me how I can do this better, and I allocated dollars in the beginning instead to having a essentially a podcast producer and a podcast manager. That, to me, was very worth it. Now had I and Mackenzie is not traditionally a podcast manager she was already someone who was working with me and I said, hey, I'm launching a podcast, do you want ownership of this? And she was like that sounds fun, that sounds interesting and she's a theater major, so it's like learning how to edit audio could be relevant to her field in some way. She's also doing sound design with different theaters, so like it makes sense for her, and so it just was like a natural lead in.

Speaker 1:

But if you were to get maybe I don't want to say proper podcast producer because that's not trying to knock what Mackenzie does, but like someone who does this as as their job they've done multiple launches, they've done a lot of podcasts, producing some like that it's their business Then like, maybe you would get the best of both worlds where you get someone who's like I have some strategic suggestions for you. I have no idea, maybe you wouldn't get that because I've never worked with a podcast manager who, like it was their business. But getting help is something that if you can afford to do it, either from from a strategic sense and or from like a production production standpoint do I want to say standpoint or sense? I think that it's well worth the investment.

Speaker 1:

I was fortunate that I was able to train Mackenzie on what it is that I wanted. I in the very beginning I'm pretty sure I don't think I've been venting this in the very beginning Like I. I did a video of like this is because I knew how to edit in GarageBand. So I was like this is how you edit in GarageBand, this is how to do this and that, and I just loomed it all and I was able to train her to do it and now, like that was the best investment of my time.

Speaker 1:

I've never, ever, edited one of my own episodes. I'm pretty sure I've never edited a single episode, not ever. I've written a lot of descriptions. I've written a lot of the podcast notes. Now it's been a while since I've done podcast notes myself, because now Bre does it, my copywriter. So I'm really fortunate to have that.

Speaker 1:

But I don't know that I would have been able. I knew that I wanted to do like two episodes a week for the first year and I'm ready to contain. I'm actually I'm just a little spoiler alert I'm actually going to up that soon. I'm actually going to go to three episodes per week soon. I thought after a year and I got the 100 episode mark, I'd maybe go down to a week, but I really love the pot. I really I found I really love doing this. So I'm actually upping it to three a week. A little crazy, but yeah, like I would never have been able to keep up with that frequency of episode production had I not had helped. Like there's no way, just would not have. I'm lucky to get one episode out a month if, to be completely honest, if I were doing this myself. So getting help has been the most and I don't think I realized in the beginning just how important that was going to be from a from a consistency standpoint. So you need to understand your capacity.

Speaker 1:

I didn't realize when I started the podcast. I was like just relaunching my business, like I had closed one business. So there was my previous business. Like I have fit, I was like, okay, I'm going to officially close this, close the doors. That's a whole separate episode, that's a whole separate issue. I've talked about this before. Like the disaster that I had with PayPal and like financially how it completely wrecked me and all that's like I had to close that business town and I started over again as an opera that it would different. The business was different than the previous business. Like I was business coaching and doing like passive products and teaching other people how to do courses and group coaching programs and things like that. And I pivoted into business consulting, operations consulting, team consulting and things like that. So it was a very different business to and that was just getting started. And I think when I started this I really didn't have a new client in that business yet. Like I got my first big, big client in November. So was after, might have been around the same time I didn't, I could never have realized how important it was to have all that help.

Speaker 1:

So you need to know your, your capacity, because consistency is going to matter whether you choose to outsource it or not. You want to keep some type of consistent posting schedule. If you can only do once a week, do once a week. If you can only do once every other week, do once every other week. If you can only do once a month, maybe get to the point where you can bank more episodes, like I don't, unless you've got a massive audience. I would not recommend, I would not recommend podcast strategist. I would not recommend only doing once a month, but, like, whatever you have the capacity for doing is consistency really matters. So get the help that you need to do to be able to maintain that consistency.

Speaker 1:

The fifth thing that I wish I would have known is that podcasts grow really slowly. I like I knew this. It's not like I didn't know it, but I was like I've got I'm very strategically minded, I've got a launch strategy. I understand SEO and I know that podcast SEO is like really a thing in this in the way that it is for, like, youtube SEO or Google SEO. But I know in, I know SEO inside out, backwards, forwards, like all the way around. I'm so good with SEO and so I was like there's got to be like, and I'm so strategic around I understand content creation, I understand, I understand, I understand and still like I was not prepared to be a year in and to not already have like a top 10% podcast or a top 20% podcast, like I'm. It's not something that I'm aggravated, I'm not. Maybe I am a touch aggravated because I get such good feedback from this show that I'm like everybody should know what this is. Everybody should be listening to this. But I also know that it is.

Speaker 1:

I like I knew that it was gonna be a long game, but it's a longer game than I realized it was that it was gonna be. So if you have a huge launch, you've gotta figure out how to maintain it. I did not. My launch did not go as well as I thought it was going to, and I'm this is, I think, point number seven is going to touch on more of this. My launch did not go as well as I thought it was going to, but I also had to really push to maintain what I did get, because I started to see, after the initial launch I started to see my stats go down and I didn't really like I thought that when you built momentum from the things that I had heard around podcasting strategy, like that momentum it would just continue building.

Speaker 1:

And it's not the case. It takes really intentional effort to continue to grow and to be able to move forward with what you wanna do. Like you've gotta be prepared to figure out how to hold your growth and it is constant work to get there. And if you don't have a huge launch, you've gotta get real scrappy on how to build it, and it's a lot of. I can see where I made this list a couple of weeks ago. I can see where I was going with some of this because it's all gonna start to tie together. You've gotta get scrappy on how to actually grow this thing.

Speaker 1:

If you wanna have a podcast like don't expect rain dogs and butterflies and what did I just say Rain dogs and butterflies, rainbows and butterflies. Don't expect like puppy dogs and rainbows is what I mean to say. Like it takes real effort and just because podcasting is the untapped medium, like it doesn't work that way, yeah, be prepared for it to take awhile to get someplace, and I wish that I would have been more prepared. I was prepared, but I was not as prepared as I should have been, so be prepared for that. Number six there needs to be. This is an offshoot of that. Number six is you need a strategy for sharing your episodes.

Speaker 1:

It took me a long time to learn what this was and I can now see direct correlations of where I share things and how I write emails. It's again I was looking at how other people were writing podcast Now, where I said earlier, I've got Bre and Bre writes my show notes. I still write my own podcast emails because I'm still figuring out what works to get people to listen. I would say it's probably only within the last month, month and a half, two months that my emails that I send about my podcasts have become effective in converting my email list to listeners to the podcast. Part of it is, I think my audience is more dialed in to around what this show is about. But also I've gotten better at understanding how to write for my people in a format that will convert them to clicking on a link to go listen, because in the beginning I remember being like I don't even know if I should send emails to my list because nothing gets them to click on anything. Like no one was clicking maybe one person here, one person there but by and large, like if they subscribed, they didn't need to click on the link. They already had access to the episode. They would just go into their podcast, whatever app they use, and they would go listen to it.

Speaker 1:

It was rare that I was getting new people and I can now see because once you have a certain amount of episodes like you can see, when someone subscribes, you get a big spike in episode downloads, because my episode downloads are still low enough where I can see those spikes. Maybe if I had a huge show I wouldn't see spikes unless there were a lot of people who were downloading all the same time. But anything in like the last I don't remember 30, 60, 90 days, if they'd subscribe and their episodes automatically download to their phone, anything within the last X amount of days is gonna show as a new download. So I can now see where there are spikes of people who come in and they listen and I can now see direct. This is I love data, I'm such a data nerd. I can see where there are direct correlations between emails that I send the people who click on the links and then spikes and people who subscribe, because I can see spikes in episode downloads and that, to me, has been gold.

Speaker 1:

Like this is why I said when I was like I can basically reverse engineer podcast launch strategy, I didn't do it as well as I thought I could have, but I'm definitely good with strategy and I can interpret data to understand what works. And so my goal is to maybe continue writing my own emails for the next maybe three to six months. Hey, bree heads up. Continue to write those emails for the next three to six months and then I can show Bree how to write them so that I don't have to do it anymore because she's already writing the show notes. She's already spending a good chunk of time spending like listening to the episode. It would be more this sounds kind of like, this sounds kind of harsh, but it's more bang for the buck of like she's already putting the time in to listen to me drone on for an hour or whatever to listen to the episode that if she could also write that email for me because she writes faster than I do, to begin with, because writing is a chore for me where she loves to do it, so I can show her how to write my emails and then I don't have to do them anymore. But realistically, had she done them in the style that I was doing them before, they wouldn't have worked. They were not working.

Speaker 1:

There has been a real change in the way that I've, the way that I've promoted them to my email list. Same thing to social media. I can see I don't really promote things on social media. I might change that for the end of the year because of things I have going on. I might dip my toe back in the water of like I'm gonna properly try to sell through social media and just use it as an experiment and know that it's fine because I don't need it, which is a lovely place to be. But so I don't really promote a whole lot on social media. But my podcast, like I would share things and I can you can see, I think only if you have a business account, you can see who clicks your links and I would same thing. I could see that, like people weren't really clicking on the links to go into the episode, and so I've changed, I've tweaked the way that I've posted my episode slides. They've always been pretty. They've always been like canvas slides. They've always been designed, but they're now designed differently enough that I can see what's working. I know, like I think I've started just within the last couple of weeks. I think I've got it down to a science of what I need to do and the order in which I post the slides.

Speaker 1:

Like I, you've gotta figure out your audience behavior. There's a strategy to the way you share your episodes and the way you shape your episodes. So your strategy for sharing and your strategy for shaping. So you need to understand your audience behavior. So what do you want the listener to do? And then what do you want the listener to take away? So you've gotta understand how to promote your episodes. But then you also have to understand how to get them to stay and take the call to action. So how do you shape the actual episode? This is also strategic. So you've got to be strategically minded, both in the way that you're producing the episodes and the way that you're sharing them with people, to get them to listen and then to actually get them to take the call to action, and then you can reverse engineer what you want them to do for both.

Speaker 1:

The seventh thing that I wish that I would have known is that guests are probably not going to help you the way that you think that they might. This has been the biggest lesson, for sure, hands down, without a doubt, is that guests are not going to help you the way that you think they might, because most people don't promote, and most people, even if they do promote, will promote once, maybe twice in their audience. Even if you know what works for your audience, they're not gonna react the same way as somebody else's audience, and so it's rare unless the person takes the and I've had a couple of people who do this, and I will shout out Alex Beeden was brilliant in the way that she shared this with her audience, because nothing has done better for me than Alex's episodes. Now I have one episode with Steve, the first episode he ever did. That's tied with one of Alex.

Speaker 1:

Alex and I did a three-part series where it was Alex Beeden. She's a launch strategist and then I interviewed her, and then in the next episode I interviewed her COO, laura Marston, and then in the episode after that of the three-part series, I interviewed them both together. Alex promoted, which she had a reason, because she approached me after the fact and was like can I share this on my own podcast? And I said, of course, and so we worked that out and that cross promotion worked really well for me and hands down, like she. But she had skin in the game because she knew she wanted to release it on her own podcast as well.

Speaker 1:

But people who have some skin in the game and they want to promote it for themselves, like those are the people who are going to do the best job quote, unquote for you to promote. Now, it's your job is to give them a platform like that is what you're doing. It's not their job to promote you. It's your job to promote them. In fact. But guests like if you are saying I'm gonna bring a bunch of guests on so that they can share with their audience and that will improve my listenership, it might not work the way you think it's going to.

Speaker 1:

Guests want exposure. So if you want exposure to their audience, you're already doing it wrong. If the reason let me say that again if the only reason you are bringing guests onto your show is because you want exposure to their audience, you are doing it wrong because your guests are coming to you to get exposure to your audience. That's what this is about. So you need to make it about them and make it easy for them to share. You could even this is something that I think I want to do moving forward is ask them like, what is your audience gonna respond best to? Do you want email copy? Do you want short email copy? Do you want long form email copy? Do you want story teller? Like, what is going to help you share this the best? It's going to get your audience to engage the best, because I now know what works for my audience. We need to understand better what their audience is going to respond to. So make it easy for them to share. Make it easy for their audience to respond to with graphics, swipe copy, et cetera, et cetera, and understand right out of the gate that most people are not going to promote.

Speaker 1:

So I've probably had 30 different guests on the show. I would say maybe 25% of them have ever shared it with their audience beyond. Maybe just like resharing a story. But sending an email, I don't think anyone has it. Maybe one or two people have done that. Like it's very and I give everyone swipe copy. Everyone gets swipe copy, everyone gets graphics. People don't share. So don't rely on guests to get exposure to things. You've got to have a strategy to promote.

Speaker 1:

So number eight I wanna talk more about shaping the episodes. I read my notes wrong where I said number six there's a strategy to sharing your episodes. It actually said shaping your episodes. So I talked a lot about what I wanted to talk about in number eight and I didn't realize it until I started reading further down the list. I sort of clumped those together. So number six was you've gotta have a strategy to shape your episodes. Number eight is you need a long-term marketing plan. So I've talked about the long-term marketing plan a bit. How can you promote? Like, sending an email is not just gonna cut it. So I also wanna talk more about I wanna go back to number six, because there really was more to like how to shape your episode that I probably wanted to share on about that.

Speaker 1:

And so let's talk about reverse engineering, because this is what you would do with any good piece of content. What do you want someone to do at the end of the episode? This is all messed up now, but it's fine, just stick with me. I read my list wrong Reverse engineering what you want people to do. If you know that you want people to buy something at the end of your episode, then you need to shape that episode in the form of sales content. If you know the goal of that podcast episode is to get them to go and purchase something, then audit, like I'm a big fan of give away the farm, give away the house, give it all away. But if you want someone to purchase something at the like if I wanted to go purchase my podcast course, I probably would not have done. I don't have a podcast course to be really clear. But if I did, I would probably not be doing an episode like this.

Speaker 1:

I would have talked about maybe the biggest holes in my launch strategy, the biggest holes in my marketing strategy, and then I would have talked about, like pieced in, I've gone more into detail on this in my course and then at the end I would have said, hey, go buy the course or watch the webinar, to go buy the thing. I wouldn't have just been like I'm gonna give away every piece of information of how I did it, et cetera, et cetera. Here are all my tips, here are the strategies that I use. Like this has been, I have nothing held back and I don't believe when you sell, it's not about holding things back, but it's about making sure that you're planting the right amount of information. You don't wanna information overload people, so this is a lot of information I would not sell through this episode.

Speaker 1:

This is about. This episode, for me, is about just sharing my story, developing trust to people. Like just hopefully you can get an interesting takeaway from this. This episode didn't have like, when I shaped this it wasn't like I want someone to go take in a big action. Here's your action. If you have not yet subscribed, please subscribe. If you have not left yet, if you have not yet left a review, please leave a review. Like, I love doing these big, meaty episodes. It's been a minute since I've done one of these but I love doing like masterclass style episodes and I do them without big calls to actions at the end of them, because my podcast is not all about sell, sell, sell.

Speaker 1:

So understand what your CTA is and reverse engineer it. You're called action and reverse engineer it. So if you know that you want someone to sign up for a masterclass, reverse engineer. What do they need to know in order to want, like, what's the step before they would sign up for that masterclass and how do you get them there? If you want them to buy the thing, what's the step that they, what's the thing that they need to know immediately before purchasing that you can give them in that episode? If you want them to subscribe to your show, what is the thing that someone would need to do in order to hit that subscribe button? So that's so again, subscribe to the scaling lounge while we're here, while you're listening to the show. So reverse engineer what you want that to be. What do you want your listener to take away from that episode? And then, what do you want the action to be that you want them to take? And reverse engineer it. So that's like number six and number eight combined. They sort of got flopped around.

Speaker 1:

Last but not least, the ninth thing, the thing that I wish that I would have known and I knew I liked talking, but the thing that I wish that, the last thing that I wish I would have known, is how important it is to be generous as a podcast host and to do it because you truly love it. There is absolutely no way on earth I would have been able to keep up with doing two episodes per week, with the exception of a week here or there where I just either didn't publish. There were a couple of weeks where I just like didn't publish an episode at all cause I just couldn't. I was super busy, mackenzie was super busy, but like the stars just did not align. There were a couple of weeks where we just for we just didn't publish the second episode in the week. Things happen, but there's no by and large. The fact that we are almost to episode 90, 52 weeks after starting, like that's pretty darn close to two episodes per week. There's no way I would have been able to do it without having been head over heels for this medium, because I'm committed to it and because I just like, I like just talking that's one of my jokes has always been like, oh, you want me to talk, you want to give me a microphone, you're sure, are you sure?

Speaker 1:

Like I dare you, I dare you to give me that microphone. I've always been this way, like I'm a part of a music organization, I'm on the board of directors and the vice president of the board of directors of the American Guild of Music and there are a bunch of musicians they're not all people who, like, they like to perform. They like to play. Some of them like to perform, some of them don't, but a lot of them are not public speakers and I'm like cool, I'll speak. I'll get on stage in front of a thousand people, however many people are out in the audience, it's fine. And the joke would be like oh, you want me to, you want me to, you want me to go talk about the thing? Sure, I can talk about the thing because I like to talk. So I knew that I was probably gonna like podcasting.

Speaker 1:

And the more that I've done it, the more I realized no, I really do love this. It's not that I like the sound of my own voice, it's not that I like hearing myself speak, it's I just like to talk, I just like to talk. I don't know, I just like to talk. And it also filled a bit of a void for me because my last by the big business, my studio that I had I was around people all the time. I talked to people constantly. I talked to my students every day. There was never a day that went by where I didn't talk to a dozen people in any given day. That is absolutely not the case anymore. On any given day, if I talk to one person on any given day. That's something for me and I'm a major extrovert. So this platform, like it's even though I'm talking to myself, I don't know, it feels like I'm talking to someone, I just like to talk. So I'm true, and there can be.

Speaker 1:

That doesn't have to be your reason for enjoying podcasting. You can enjoy it, for I also love interviewing. Oh my gosh, I don't think I could have. When I first started interviewing people, I was like I want to be the next Oprah because I love interviewing people so much I don't think I could ever be the next Oprah, but like I truly. I had a moment where I was like I'm good at this, I'm good at interviewing people and that has been consistently reaffirmed and reaffirmed and reaffirmed. When I talk to people who listen, when I talk to people that I've interviewed, I hear from every person I've interviewed almost every person they're like that was one of the best interviews I've ever done, like you're really good at interviewing and I it's because I love it. I love getting into understanding the inner. I want to know more about how people think.

Speaker 1:

Truly, when I said I'm starting another podcast, like there are five other podcasts I want to start. I could do this all day forever If I had unlimited resources to just be like Breed McKenzie. Do you want to be my podcast team forever? And we're just going to produce a gazillion podcasts and don't worry about making any money from business, like I would probably do it, because I really, I just I enjoy it. I enjoyed a lot, and that has been where I said consistency matters, whereas, so I said a lot of stuff. Stuff is going to start to tie together Consistency matters.

Speaker 1:

It's going to be slow growth. Expect slow growth. Do everything you can to mitigate that, but the growth is going to be slow. Guests aren't going to promote the way that you might expect them to. Small details can make things go awry. You're going to have ups and downs. At the end of the day, you have to love this. Don't start a podcast unless you truly love it or unless it's truly going to fulfill a need and you can turn it into. I get to do this instead of like I have to, but podcasting can really be a chore. So if you don't love it, it's going to be really hard to keep up with, especially, especially if you don't see quick wins and especially if it doesn't give you longterm wins.

Speaker 1:

And the other thing. The last thing that I would say here is to make it about your people. Like, be generous and do it because you love it. Also, make it about your people. Do it because you truly want to help people. Do it because you truly want to serve people. Do it because you truly want to show up and provide value, provide entertainment, provide education, provide edutainment, whatever that looks like for you. Make sure that you are so head over heels in love with showing up for your people in that way and showing up for yourself because you love it. Because I tell you what, if you don't have both, I have both a strong sense of wanting to serve my people in a way that's free.

Speaker 1:

I knew like Jerisha Hawke says that her content is her church. Like her free content, she's willing to give it all away for free because that's her church. And that really hit me, jerisha, someone if you don't follow Jerisha Hawke like I love her. I think she's so smart. I've never worked with her, but I think she is brilliant and she's a fellow Detroiter. She's not. I don't think she's in Detroit anymore. I think she lives now in California. So I really want to approach it with that stream strategy.

Speaker 1:

I have a lot of respect for that strategy of church isn't not really. That doesn't really resonate with me. Like she is outwardly she talks about like God and things like that and how she believes that she's serving her faith and different things like that. That's not me. So I don't necessarily think about it like my church. But when I think about what the concept of the church is, that's my podcast. I don't like to show up in that way on my social media because I just don't have the bandwidth for it. I don't enjoy social media, but this podcast is the church or the community center or the I don't know.

Speaker 1:

Can some Brie, can you come up with a better analogy for me? When you go to write the show notes, is there a better analogy here? Like that is this for me. Whatever, wherever people come to gather and to feel a sense of community, I don't know that's this for me. So I both love it and I'm here to serve people.

Speaker 1:

If you don't have, if you have neither of those things, podcasting is not gonna be for you. But if you have a strong sense of one or the other, and especially if you have both, then I personally think that podcasting is so extraordinarily worth it, but you have to be willing to stick with it. So I knew this was gonna be a long one, but this was a long one and I hope that you got something out of this. I hope this was interesting to you. Or if you have question. Like I said, I'm not a podcast strategist, but if you have questions about starting your own podcast, please do.

Speaker 1:

If you start your own podcast or you are in the beginning stages of sharing, of starting your podcast, or you've had it for a while but it's just not gone the way you want, then you're like this episode inspired me in some way or helped me in some way. Tag me on Instagram with your own show and I will reshare it for you. I promise I will reshare it. Tag me at Adrienne Gallia, the scaling lounge, like. Sometimes we monitor that, sometimes we don't, but if you tag me at Adrienne Gallia, I will, I'll reshare it for you. How about that? So, and with that, I'm gonna give you one more time that call to action If you have not yet subscribed, please subscribe.

Speaker 1:

That would mean a lot to me. If you, I mean if you enjoyed it. If you didn't enjoy it. I don't think you would have lasted an hour, but also, yeah, I don't think you would have lasted an hour. If you're still here and you have not subscribed yet, please do Please. I would super appreciate a written. Hopefully you've enjoyed it. Five star written review and I will catch you in the next one. Thank you so much for being here, especially those of you who have been around for a year. But even if you've only been around for a week, thank you for being here.

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Adriane Galea

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