Transcript Episode 24: What I Learned About Launching a Podcast
Transcript Episode 24
Stephanie Skryzowski:
Welcome to the 100 Degrees of Entrepreneurship podcast. The show for purpose-driven entrepreneurs who want to get inspired to step outside of your comfort zone, expand it to your purpose, and grow your business in a big way. I’m your host, Stephanie Skryzowski, a globe-trotting CFO, whose mission is to empower leaders to better understand their numbers, to grow their impact, and their income. Let’s dive in.
Hey everybody. I am so excited to be here with you today. And we have a topic that I think is kind of funny because we are talking today about what I have learned about podcasting. And I think it’s funny because I am in no way an expert in this, right? Like I’ve been doing this for a few months now. I’ve recorded a handful of solo shows. I’ve recorded a handful of interviews. And I feel like I’m learning a little bit more and hopefully getting a little bit better with each episode that I record but I am by no means an expert. So it’s kind of funny that I’m sharing this, but I wanted to share this just in case you needed to hear from another beginner what podcasting is like. So today I want to share with you five things I have learned about launching a podcast.
So let’s just get right into it okay. Number one, the first thing that I have learned is I love it. I love podcasting. I’m completely obsessed. I love that I can just pop into my office once I have an idea and an outline that I can just pop in here and talk to you at any time of day or night. Right now, it is the evening. I have just put my girls to bed. I’m sitting here in my pajamas with my contacts out, my glasses on, and I’m just kind of relaxing and chatting with you, chatting with friends. So I love that I can do it any time. And I love that it kind of lives forever. And so for me, like when I find a new podcast that I love, I often go back in time. Go back to the very first episode sometimes and listen to everything that they have.
Whereas, if I find somebody new on social media, for example, I’m not going to scroll back to the beginning of their Instagram feed. So I just love it. I really, really enjoy it. And I think the biggest thing that I have learned is I thought I would enjoy it. I thought when I started it, like obviously I wouldn’t have started it if I didn’t think I was going to love it. But I think the biggest sort of lesson here is that we never know until we try. I am so happy that I just decided at the end of 2020 to just go for it. Like, I’m just going to try this thing if I love it, great. I’ll continue it. If I don’t that’s okay, too. So I really move through life and work with a okay, good enough for me. Quick action is better than perfect action.
And so there were a lot of things that were not perfect about everything that we did to launch the podcast, but we got it going and it’s out there and you’re listening to it. So thank you. So number one, first thing I learned was that I love it and I wouldn’t have known that unless I tried. So I’m grateful. So the second thing that I’ve learned is that I’m a minimum viable products person through and through. I used to think I was a perfectionist and I think in some ways I am, but like I said a minute ago, I am very much a quick action over perfect action. And so I’m very willing to just like let good enough be good enough to get something done and get something out there. And that was very much the case with the podcast. So there was some things I did make an investment in.
Like I have an editing team that edits the podcast and posts it to all the places. Thank you, Steve and Alison. But I wasn’t willing to learn how to edit podcast myself. So I did make some investments, but I did not make other investments. So I was very happy with a minimum viable product website. So the website for my podcast, 100degreesconsulting.com/podcast. At first, I had really dreamed up something fancy. I was looking at like Amy Porterfield’s podcast website or Jenna Kutcher’s podcast website and these are people that have had podcasts for years upon years upon years, have multi-million dollar businesses and are not just three steps ahead of me, but probably like three miles ahead of me. And so I was comparing myself to them and then realized actually my operations director helps me realize, thank you Amanda. Like, let’s just put this out there with the best that we can do.
And if we need to upgrade our website in time, we can absolutely do that. So I love it. I was able to just get it out there, minimum viable product and here we are. So that also gives you opportunity and room to grow in the future. So I just encourage you to think about that. And what part of your life are you kind of holding back a little bit because you’re not willing to put the minimum viable product out there. Like there’s got to be something that you could put into the world, even though it’s not a hundred percent perfect. And like I said before, the quick action is better than perfect action. So that was number two. Number three. What I have learned is really considering what is ROI on the podcast and there’s monetary ROI versus other ROI. So I don’t have any monetary return on my investment in the podcast, right?
I’m not making money, I’m not selling anything on the podcast. In fact, I guess I’m kind of losing money, right? Because I have the expense of my podcast editors and other pieces, hosting and things like that. So there’s an expense but there’s no revenue. However, there is other ROI. I am building brand awareness. I am sharing my expertise with the world. I am gaining listeners and gaining followers and people are coming to download our resources. So like great things are happening. There is an ROI for the podcast but it’s not a monetary ROI. And I think the lesson learned here is really assessing that before you start. So I knew going into the podcast that it was not going to be a revenue generating activity, at least for the first bit. But I did have a plan for the fact that there wasn’t going to be revenue.
I knew that my business could handle the additional expense of the podcast. And I knew that there was going to be a different type of ROI on launching the podcast. So I think that’s an interesting sort of lesson learned. I feel like a lot of times we go into things in our business and if you’re like me and you’re a quick action taker, you’re like in it before you realize, oh no, like what is my ROI here? Maybe there’s no monetary ROI, but is there even any type of return on my investment here? And so I think that’s the other thing I learned that I am really willing to sacrifice a monetary ROI. If I know that there’s something else that is benefiting me as well.
You hear me talk all the time about how important it is to know your numbers as a business owner. But you may be thinking, well, how in the world do I do that? Where do I even begin? So I have a free resource for you. The profit playbook is an amazing template that you spend about 15 minutes getting it all set up and you can literally see into the future of your business, revenue, expenses, cashflow just like a crystal ball. It is a huge resource that will absolutely help you create a roadmap to reach your goals in your business. It is for free over at 100degreesconsulting.com/profit.
So the fourth thing that I have learned about launching a podcast is a diversity is really important to me. So I have tried to invite a diverse slew of guests, diverse voices onto the podcast, but I really need to work on this even more. I need to work on doing better. So of course I started interviewing people within my own network and have begun to branch out from that but diversity is really something that’s important to me. So it’s something I want to and need to actively work on. This is not just a sit here and let people come to me. It’s something I need to actively do. And so that’s something I’ve learned that that’s really important to me in my podcast is to have other voices on the show that are not exactly like me. And then the fifth thing I learned about launching a podcast is that I am kind of obsessed with batching.
So the way that we recorded our first batch of episodes was I invited about 15 guests to interview on the podcast with me. I sent them the invitation. I sent them my calendar link and they all scheduled a time and I did it within a course of like probably three weeks or so. And in those three weeks because I was so focused on the podcast, I was getting ideas for solo shows left and right. So anytime I had a free moment in my evenings and my morning, even throughout my day, I would jot down the outline for the episode, then record it. And so we were able to record probably 15 guest episodes and at least 10 solo episodes in the course of about four or so weeks. And so what that meant was that we then had five months of content built up. Which was awesome because that meant I could sit back and let my team put each of those episodes through our podcast workflow.
And every week, every Monday, a new episode is released and I don’t have to do something every single week for it. Like the podcast episode is recorded, it goes to our editors, it’s edited. Then it goes to my assistant who sends it to rev.com to get the transcript then that goes to our content writer or our copywriter and she writes the show notes and the blog posts and the email that goes out about it, as well as the social media posts. Then that gets put into Planoly by my assistant. And then I posted to Instagram. And so for each episode, that’s what happens but I don’t have to do a whole lot on the backend. I recently had somebody say to me, “Wow, you must be so busy, like with the podcast launch and putting out an episode a week.” And I’m like, honestly, I’m not like, I’m really not.
It is not that much work. I put a lot of work into the front end in recording all of the episodes and then building the process out with my team. But now that the process is built, it just kind of happens without me behind the scenes and we have content scheduled out. And I have to say, I think we hear about batching all the time. Like batching different work, batching content, batching this and batching that. And I always want to be a batcher. Like I always want to be one of those people that can like easily batch things. And oh, now I have six months worth of Instagram posts. I just haven’t been able to do it. But with this podcast, I’m like okay, now I get it. I see the merit in this. This is awesome. So I think that’s how we’re going to approach things from now on.
We kind of get ourselves into like a quarterly rhythm where we have a whole bunch of guests. We record a bunch of episodes and then boom, the workflow takes care of itself for the next three months. So those are the five things I have learned in launching a podcast. So I hope that you found this useful as a newbie podcaster here’s what I learned. And I purposely didn’t include anything about equipment because I just bought the stuff that my podcast producer told me to buy and it’s worked just fine. And I use the software that they told me to use, which is Audacity and it’s really easy and it works just fine. So there’s not a whole lot there that I feel like I’ve learned. I just did what somebody told me and plug things in and it magically all works and sounds nice.
So just to recap, the five things I learned about launching a podcast. So the first thing is I love it. And I think the lesson there is that I wouldn’t have known that unless I tried. A minimum viable product is number two. MVP all the way. I was happy to get something good enough out there with the room to improve in the future. Number three is understanding and being okay with other ROI instead of a monetary ROI and having a plan and the forecast and to know that my business can handle the fact that this podcast is not generating revenue. Number four is I learned that diversity matters to me and that it’s something I need to continue actively working on to showcase diverse voices on my podcast. And number five was, I am now a devotee of the batching process for podcast content. So this episode is probably going to come out quite a bit after I recorded it because of our batching process.
But you know what? Then I don’t have to do anything or think about it for a couple of months. So I love it. Those are the five things I’ve learned and I would love if you have a podcast or if you have a newbie podcasts especially, what are some of the things you learned in your first couple of months of podcasting? And I have listened to podcasts for years and have always been so inspired. And I think I may have said this in my very first episode, but I used to, when I was driving the car by myself record, not record, but sort of practice my intro to my fake podcast. I was in the car by myself and like practice interviewing guests and practice sharing my story, which is like so embarrassing to even think about right now. But yeah, that was kind of how I initially had this inkling that this might be for me.
So I don’t know. I just encourage you to think about what’s that thing that’s in the back of your mind that you’re like, oh, I think I’d be really good at that. I think it really want to do that or that thing that you’ve been sort of like fake trying like me pretending to record my podcast intro or interviews in the car by myself. What’s a thing you’ve been kind of fake trying or playing along with? Is that something that you think you could do? I just encourage you to try it out cause you know what you will never know unless you try and minimum viable product is absolutely okay. So anyway, hope this was an encouragement to you friends. I’ll see you next time.
Thanks for listening to the 100 Degrees of Entrepreneurship podcast. To access our show notes and bonus content visit 100degreesconsulting.com/podcast. Make sure to snap a screenshot on your phone of this episode and tag me on Instagram @stephanie.skry and I’ll be sure to share. Thanks for being here friends and I’ll see you next time.
Transcript Episode 24
