Why I swore I'd never launch a podcast (and why I did anyway)

Seven years ago, podcasting was the next big thing, and every guru online was telling business owners the same thing: if you're not podcasting, you're falling behind. I didn't listen. I've never been someone who jumps on a trend just because I'm told to, so I sat this one out for years.

In this episode, I share the real story: why I resisted for so long, what actually changed my mind five years later, and the honest reality of what it takes to run a podcast alongside a business, and a life.

I talk about why podcasting shouldn't be your first marketing move (and what needs to be in place before it will actually work for you), the real time and effort behind producing an episode, how AI has changed parts of that process, and why, even with all the challenges, it's one of the most personal and bingeable ways to build trust with your audience.

I also share two client stories, one who chose to guest on other people's shows instead of launching her own, and one who went all in on weekly episodes and burnt out, and what she's doing differently now.

In this episode you'll discover:
~ Why I swore I'd never launch a podcast, and what changed my mind five years later
~ Why podcasting works best as a strategy layered on top of other marketing, not your starting point
~ The real time and effort behind producing an episode, and how AI has changed (but not eliminated) that workload
~ Why podcasting is personable, not AI-generated, and genuinely bingeable content
~ Two client stories on different ways to approach podcasting, and what they learned along the way

If you've been thinking about starting your own podcast and aren't sure whether it's the right move, I've got two free resources to help:

🎧 Is Podcasting Right for You or Just Your Next Distraction?
https://www.socialrenegades.co/free-guide-is-podcasting-right-for-you

📋 The Complete Podcast Checklist
https://www.socialrenegades.co/podcast-launch-checklist

If this episode resonated, share it with a friend, colleague, or fellow business owner who might need to hear it. 

Thanks for listening, see you in the next episode!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to the platform study of the crazy everything else last week. One week statement. Today, I work for service by business on visibility and attractive work. Without further attractive doing more, pushing harder, and losing balance along the way. That's what we have. Before we started, I created a free reason to do it. It's a simple reason of what I call the quite attractive method. A way of attracting visibility and voice that actually works long term. You can download it via the link in the show notes. Now, let's get into today's episode. Why I swore I would never launch a podcast yet, I went ahead and launched one anyway. Hey everyone, I am Lou. I am, of course, the host of the Part-Time CEO podcast. And I'm excited today because here I am talking to you about why I swore I would never launch a podcast, what made me change my mind, I guess the benefits, and why, if you've been thinking about launching a podcast, it could be really beneficial to you. And also some of the challenges that come with podcasting, so that you are, I guess, going in a full eyes wide open, which is something that I probably didn't really do so much. So if you are thinking about launching a podcast, I've also got two resources available on my website. So number one, is podcasting right for you or just the next distraction? So this is a comprehensive strategic guide for business owners considering podcasting. So basically you're kind of on the fence, that you've been thinking about it, uh, but you're not sure if it's right for you, or you're not sure if it's just a really great idea. Uh, this resource is going to help you identify if it is the right idea for you. Uh and the second podcast resource is called the complete podcast checklist. So everything you need to consider before you hit record from strategy to sustainability. So both of those are free resources available on the resource page of the Social Renegades website. Uh so they're at two phases in terms of uh if you're thinking about it uh or if you are ready to jump in and get cracking, then it will help guide you through that process. So, first up, let's talk about why I swore I would never launch a podcast. So, about seven years ago, podcasting became like the next biggest thing. Everyone started doing it, and all of the gurus out there basically started telling anyone in the online world, if you weren't podcasting, then you were falling behind. Now, I'm not so much like a person that jumps on every trend bandwagon. In fact, I can't think of too many trends which I have jumped on instantly, uh, full boots and all feeling really excited. So when everyone often tells me I need to do something, I often don't. Sometimes that can be detrimental, but most of the time when it comes to business, uh, I do this because when I take steps forward, they come from a strategic, a purposeful, intentful, and logical place. So when the gurus were saying launch a podcast, I sat there and I thought about what that looked like and if it would help me move my business in the direction I wanted it to go in, which was of course Fords. Now, seven years ago, no. The answer to that was quite simple, and it was no, it wasn't going to be helping me. So therefore, I didn't. I don't do things just because other people tell me to do them. So I went along in my Mary, no, I'm not doing that way for a good couple of years. It was probably about five, I think roughly five years ago, where I changed my tune. Now, how did that occur? So I'd been in business for, well, that would have been the five-year mark. I'm coming up 10 years in business now. So I would have been in business for about five years. I felt more confident, I had paying clients, um, you know, I had a couple of people contracting to me. Uh, I understand more, I understood more about my ideal client, who I was working with, uh, and I had my marketing and business pillars moving forward in the right direction. Don't get me wrong, nothing was in a perfect place because it never is, but I felt like the systems and the processes that I had in place to grow the business, market the business, and attract paying clients and retain them were doing pretty well. Now, I had also got to a point in my business where I no longer only wanted to do one-on-one mentoring, and I had a dream to, like many others, to have an online um an online program. Now, I had tried a number of times to get this program off the ground and I failed every single time. So then someone I came across in the online world who was um an expert in this place, uh, she was offering a program on how to launch and grow programs. So I invested and I and I loved it. It was a 12-month program, uh, it was a high investment, but it was perfect. It was very logical, very literal, and it took you step by step through her entire process and strategy in order to be able to launch your program successfully and then how to go about growing it. So I loved it. Now I launched, I followed all the steps, I launched my program, I had paying clients, the feedback was great. Uh, I think I launched it a second time, but then it got to a point where I recognized I didn't have the numbers in my database. So my email, uh my social media, you know, I didn't have the numbers in order to keep on like launching and attracting more people because statistically you need a lot of people to convert into an online membership program. So high numbers, low conversion. So I didn't have a huge amount of money at that point in time to invest in paid advertising because I had invested my money into doing this program instead. So I was um I was relying on more organic content marketing ways, which, of course, funnily enough, what I'm an expert in. So at this point of time in the program where you recognize you've kind of exhausted the database that you've got and you need to be filling it up with more people, paid advertising wasn't a way. Um, I was doing joint ventures with other people to get in front of their network and then get in front of mine. And the next strategy came up to be able to increase your authority, share your expertise, and get in front of a like-minded audience, um, which was ultimately launching a podcast. Now, the other strategies that were suggested were things like uh YouTubing. So if I was into vlogging, or if you're into vlogging, then that was a great strategy. Uh the other one was you know keynote speaking or guest speaking in front of uh people in audio, like you know, in in front of a room of people, which I didn't really want to do. Um, and then there was podcasting. And I thought, here we are again, podcasting is coming up. Um, I swore I wasn't going to do it, and it was at that point in time I could see why podcasting could work for my business. I'm a very big why person. Before I jump into something, I need to understand the why behind it and then feel confident and excited in what it is that I'm going ahead to do. So I now understood why podcasting could be so beneficial to helping people that I helped, whether, you know, not everyone I need to help needs to be paid. So it was an opportunity to offer uh a free resource to my own audience, future audience, but also invite uh other guests onto the show and share wisdom and experience and expertise with them. Uh, it was also an opportunity to showcase my incredible network because I've got some really awesome um friends, well, now friends, virtual friends and uh business, I guess I call them colleagues. I I was able, well, I would be able to share their insight and expertise with my audience. Uh, and from a strategy point of view, this meant that my audience was able to hear from somebody else. So therefore, that person was getting some exposure, and then at the same time, that person would share the podcast with their audience, and then I would be getting exposure too. So that's a free strategy, it's a two-for-one deal to be able to work together and collaborate and getting our expertise out in the world, helping other people, and then if they want to know more about um our paid services, then that gave them the opportunity to do that. So, all well and good decided, yep, podcasting was the way that I was going to go. Now, just before I talk, I guess, about the challenges, I have talked a little bit about you know the benefits of podcasting. So, something I also just really want to highlight and give light to, which is highlighting, is that when I chose to launch a podcast, I felt like the business had momentum and that I had other marketing strategies up and running really well. So that meant that I had regular uh content going out on my social media platforms. That meant that I had regular email marketing going out. That meant that potentially I was a part of Facebook groups that I was an active member of. That what I was at that time, not so much now. But the first two, uh, when it came to paid advertising, I wasn't doing that at that point in time, but I knew how to do it if I wanted to go ahead and do some paid ads. You know, I had free resources. I had a website that was aligned with the services or the people that I helped and the services that I offered. So the business itself was fundamentally in a strong place to then invest more time, energy, and resources in a new marketing strategy, which was going to require a lot more time and energy than what potentially I needed to invest in the other marketing strategies because I'd been doing them a while, I was much quicker, uh, and also, you know, I was able to outsource some of that too. So sometimes I bring this up because I sometimes talk to women in business who want to launch a podcast, which is incredible. Now the purpose of this podcast is that they've got something they want to talk about, which is why we launched podcasting, right? But from a business point of view, I ask them questions around what they're doing currently to grow their business and attract paying clients. And some of them, not all of them, but some of them, don't have the basic pillars set up. So therefore, I recommend to them to get those basic pillars going uh before you take on such a big project like a podcast. A podcast is not meant to be your sole marketing strategy, uh, because even if you ran a podcast on a part-time or full-time basis, they have lots of different strategies in order to be able to continue to grow the listeners. So, one of my first pieces of advice is if you want to launch a podcast and you know, for all of the reasons that I talked about, you want to share your words of wisdom, your experience, you want to inspire others, you know, you've got friends that you want, like business acquaintances or friends you want to interview. My first recommendation to you is first have all those pillars set up. Because when you start your podcast, if they're not set up, uh they will fall down whatever you've done. So this kind of leads me to some of the challenges along my journey. So, as I mentioned, the first season of this podcast launched about five years ago. Uh, it was called uh Strategize to Monetize, where we specifically or where I specifically talked about business strategies. I was the marketing or the content marketing expert on the show. I would share some of my knowledge and then I would invite other experts in a marketing and business space to share their words of wisdom too. It wasn't only marketing, we've had pricing experts and sales experts, um, you know, but we had SEO experts and email marketing experts. So they all fundamentally came on to talk about the strategy that they were an expert in. And it was great. And it went for, I'm gonna say maybe six episodes until it wasn't great, and then it stopped. Now, why did it stop? It stopped because what I didn't recognize when I learnt launched my podcast, I knew all the reasons why it could work and how great it would be, but I didn't realize the amount of time that needed to go into such a strategy. It is a big project, right? So you have to be able to schedule the time to sit down to do the recordings, you have to edit the interviews, um, you know, put together the show notes, graphics. Uh, you have to, if you're doing it with an uh with somebody else, you've got to send them the email, you know, it will be launching on this date. Here are the here's an email to send to your database, and here is the graphic, you know, can you please send this out? Um, you know, like a lot of production goes into creating one simple episode. And then you've got episodes like this one where I've actually recorded this interview already, but then when I listened back to it, I didn't feel like I hit the mark on the message that I was wanting to share. So here I am recording it again, right? Now I didn't schedule time in my day to stuff up the first uh recording, so therefore, here I am back recording it again, editing it again in order to be able to move forward and get this log. So there is a lot that goes on behind the scenes. Now, five years ago, AI wasn't around. So all of that was done manually. Um, whereas now we've got the opportunity to be able to, well, one, you can still edit people to, I'm sorry, you can outsource people to edit, but when it comes to you know getting the short clips to market, you can download the transcript, you can put that into a platform like Otta, or you can download the audio, sorry, and then put that into a platform like Otta that will put it into a transcript for you. Then you can put that into something like Claude, you can say, here's the episode, write me an email promoting this, write me a social media caption launching this episode. Uh, you can put the video version into a platform like Opus Clip that will then put it into small bite-sized videos for you to be able to again get the transcript, put it into a platform like Claude, say I've got a short clip, write me a short um caption to go with it. You know, we can do things slightly quicker than what we could do five years ago, but fundamentally, there is still a lot of time that goes into doing something like this, if this is something that you want to do. So that's probably the biggest challenge is having allocating the time. But then also when your season of business or life changes, keeping your uh podcast show going is really challenging. So when I launched the podcast five years ago, I was just, it was just after COVID. Um, so you know, socializing really wasn't such a big thing at that point in time. Uh, we were just coming out of that phase, we were home a lot, and I had lots of time to just sit there and work. Now, as we could continue to um be less restricted and do more socializing, you know, I started to travel more, hang out with friends. And I recognized it's really hard to schedule podcasting interviews when you're constantly on the go. So therefore, I went ahead and I hit pause on the show that I was doing. Now, the in my life, the travel period was when I traveled all around New Zealand, which wasn't meant to be a long-term thing, but it did turn into two years of living my best house sitting and traveling life. And I loved it. But during that time, I was focusing on um quicker ways, quicker ways to grow my business, like social media marketing and paid ads and referrals. But I also had clients that I needed to juggle in the days that I wasn't moving. So there was no time in my life to be able to do podcasting. And that, I guess, is a challenge that you may potentially face if you're like me and you like to get out and about because you love the freedom and the flexibility that your business brings. Uh, the other challenge came is when I did finally find somewhere to live and I was more physically grounded, but then my dad got sick, and you know, that required a lot of my time and energy too. So there was no time for podcast episode recording or meeting with other people to collaborate. Um, different parts of my life and my business required that energy instead. So, again, that got put on hold. So there is a real challenge with the balance of the podcast show. And when it's the right season to do it, it's great. Um, but sometimes it's not always possible, and you have to be okay with that. Um, I found that really hard because I'd made a commitment. Personally found it really hard to be okay and give myself a break that the season of podcasting was not the season that I was also in until I got back to uh recording the second season, which is of course this one. So there's some of the challenges. So instead of just talking about all the doom and gloom, let's talk about why it could be really great for you. So I've kind of already touched on some of these in terms of being a different way to get your services and how you help people in front of, you know, a new audience, uh, and that is in the podcasting audience. Um, you know, you've got a way to be a little bit more, uh bring a little bit more variety to your business. You know, instead of people reading posts or watching short clips, you're then recording more extended versions of those uh conversations and you can share more uh in you know 20 to 40 minutes than you can in 20 to 30 seconds. So that's pretty cool. Then you can cut it up into those short bite size, which then of course lead people who are interested to the longer version. Uh, it's really fun because you can collaborate with other people. Uh that brings a different vibe to the podcast episode. And then, as I mentioned, you know, it gets you in front of another audience and then that person you're collaborating with in front of your audience. So it is a mutual beneficial, um, beneficial strategy for business growth. Uh, the other thing I really love about it, which has evolved over the last couple of years, is how personable podcasting is. So when I launched my podcast five years ago, it was only audio. Fast forward to today, you now have the opportunity to watch this podcast in video form as opposed to just listening uh to my voice. So, you know, the sites that host uh the episodes give you the option to do video and audio or just audio. So when you do video, whilst it can be scary because you know you have to do your hair and have a pretty background and everything else, um, you know, it gives you the opportunity to connect with your audience in a completely different way. Uh, it's also not AI. Well, I haven't seen it or heard of a pop. That is AI generated. So, what you're watching or listening right now is me. I'm not an AI person, a podcast host, I'm not an AI speaker. I am the physical person, me talking about my experience on why I swore I would never launch a podcast, yet here I am today, ironically talking to you on a podcast. So, with a world very heavily now dominated, you know, in my space, particularly what I know in marketing, this gives us the opportunity to be real human still, as opposed to Claude, write me this, Claude, write me that. Claude can't write my voice talking to you. Well, not yet, anyway. So it is a really great way to be personable, to be able to share energy, share wisdom and stories. You get to know more about me, and then when you reach out through messages or you know, leave comments, I get to know more about you too. So again, a two-way street, but a very human uh two eye two-way street, which is pretty cool. So they are also, just before we move on to you know, the couple of my client stories, they are also, uh they do also give our audience or our listeners the opportunity to binge on our content. So it makes it really easy for somebody looking for marketing strategies, if they come across this podcast, then they will likely be really interested in all of the other podcast episodes I've recorded about different strategies that are still really relevant. So it's not just a platform that is producing, you know, mass content like Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn where like you blink and you miss it. People listen and watch podcasts because that's what they're choosing to do, not because they're doom scrolling. Once they've listened or once they've watched, they then might get a bit of a um, they might enjoy what you're talking about, go and check the rest of your category and then get to learn more about you, which is building further trust, um, which is also, you know, giving them the opportunity to get know more about what your services are. Then they might go to social media or sign up to your email, um, and you can continue to build that a virtual relationship with them where they either continue to love all of your free content or one day might say, Hey, you know what? I wonder if this person could actually help me. So bingeable content in a day of fast content, um, it's pretty key and it's pretty good. So before we wrap up, we've got I've got a couple of client stories. Just, you know, you might relate to them, we might find them interesting as well. So these stories talk about, you know, how two people have done podcasting quite differently. I'm very adamant that podcasting is no one size fits all. In the next episode, I'm going to be busting five of the biggest myths I've been told when I first launched my podcast, and that I still hear today. Um, but to me, I believe that your podcast is your show, just like your business. You get to do it your way. You don't have to listen to all of the gurus. Uh, and these two stories kind of give a little bit of a glimpse in how two people have done it differently, what they learned, and maybe um, you know, what they decided to do differently in the future. So one of my clients, she didn't want to launch her own podcast show. Um, I don't actually know why, I never asked her, but I know through working with her in her marketing, it often came up that she didn't like putting herself out there. That's why she hired a marketer to do that for her. So I can only think, knowing that um pattern, that one of the reasons why she didn't want to launch a podcast show was because she didn't want to put herself out there to be seen, to be heard, and maybe even critiqued. Because sometimes what we say is our own reality, but it doesn't align with what a reality is for someone else, and they might give us feedback about that. So instead of launching her own podcast show, her strategy was to get on other people's podcast shows instead. So she would still be able to get herself in front of a new audience, and she'd be able to market that show to her audience to get that person uh in front of them as well. So this worked really well for her, and maybe that will work really well for you also. Um, so that involves research, like podcast researching, and then pitching. Uh, and then there's often like a big questionnaire that you kind of fill out. Sometimes you might be interviewed before you become a guest on that show, or you get the information to become a guest on that show, and you know, then you get all of the rest of the um information moving forward, like the marketing material and etc. etc. So there's still a bit of work that goes into that. You don't just get on a podcast show at the click of your fingers. So my role in all of this was to research and pitch to other podcast hosts. Now, for this individual, it worked, it ticked the box of I don't want to do my own show very well, but I can get on to others. Now, whilst it ticked that box and was beneficial slightly, the challenge that it presented was often podcast hosts invite other podcast hosts on their um channel, let's call it. And sometimes when you're pitching to those podcast hosts, they want to come on your show as well. Now, if you don't have a show, then of course that makes it a bit challenging because you can't do that. Now, instead of having a show, what they might ask is, you know, how many people follow you on social media or how many people in your email database? Because if they're going to give you access to their audience and their network, they want to know that you can do something that is going to help promote them too. So, yes, they want you on there because you're an expert, you're bringing huge value to their audience, but they want to be able to bring value to your audience at the same time. And if you don't have a podcast uh show, then they're going to try to suss out how you go about doing that. Now, sometimes we would not get um on people's shows because this client didn't have a show of her own and she didn't meet the metrics that that person was looking for. Um she also, yeah, again, as I guess said, she didn't meet the metrics, which was another challenge. So if you decide to go down the researching and podcast route, just be aware it can definitely work for you. There are lots of Facebook groups, people are always looking for guests on their shows, but sometimes you might get some pushback because you don't have your own show or you don't have the database to be able to promote them. And that's okay. Uh, we're not a perfect fit for everybody, right? Now, my second client, this person did have a podcast. So when we first started working together, they were a host of a podcast for somebody else. Uh, and that they decided collectively not to host that show anymore. One went in one direction and stopped being a podcast host for quite a while. But my client decided that she would evolve that, she would utilize the database that had already been created, and she would pivot the podcast to be more aligned with the a different business that she also worked uh in or ran. Now, like myself, she fully jumps in, fully committed. Now, a lot of people will say you need to launch an episode every single week on the same day at the same time to build momentum, which is not untrue. However, it is also exhausting. And so this client, for a longer like period of time, every week she released an episode. Sometimes they were solo, sometimes they were with um other people. She has an incredible network filled with wisdom. Sometimes they were going to live podcasting events with other people on a panel where you would all collectively answer different questions. So she went in full guns blazing into this podcasting space. Now, what she learned along that journey was when she was running two businesses and running a podcast show like that consistent or with that much focus, it became a chore. She's burnt out, she didn't want to do it anymore, and she lost the passion for doing it. And that is a real thing. So whilst you can have all of the understanding of why podcasts can work, how they can help you grow a business, how cool it is to talk about, you know, your expertise and your experience and showcase the people in your network. If you don't do it in a way that works with your business and with your life, it will get to a point where it all falls down, which was what it did in this case. That person has since relaunched uh their podcast show and now does it in a way that suits them. Uh, it's a bit more rigid and flexible. So instead of doing episodes weekly, they do them when they're in the right season to be able to do it. Because this person runs two businesses, they travel, they have a family, they have a life, and sometimes recording an episode every week or going to a live event is just not possible. Um, through the journey of podcast exhaustion and burnout, they've come out the other side a far more balanced podcast uh host. So again, if you're thinking of launching a podcast, you know, you really have to think about how often you will release your episodes, how often you might have a guest on, and also be quite rigid in the way that you're thinking, that the way that you think you'll do it may change along the way, and that is okay. So, again, if you're thinking about launching your own podcast and you've listened to this and you think, you know what, I still I'm really still excited about this, but I still don't know if it's for me. Like I mentioned at the start, I do have a resource available on my website, which is www.socialrenegades.co. And this is called Is Podcasting Right for You or Just The Next Description? A comprehensive strategic guide for business owners considering podcasting. This will go through some of what we've just spoken about on this episode and also give you more in-depth as to helping you identify if it is right for you, if you're just doing it because someone told you you should do it, um, or if you are just doing it because you're currently bored and you've got nothing else to do, and so you thought you might give this a go. So that will help you in that space. Now, if you are ready and committed to go and you think, yeah, I'm so excited to do this, but I don't know where to start. Uh, then I've got a second resource which is free. It's called your complete podcast launch checklist to everything you need to consider before you hit report from strategy to sustainability. This also talks about mindset, because I know myself that launching a podcast, the actual fundamental parts of launching a podcast are really quite easy. But the voices that come up in all of the roadblocks mentally that come up along the way are a force to be reckoned with, and that uh resource will help you identify those and hopefully help you move through some of them. So, like my client who didn't want to start her own podcast, you know, I don't want to be seen, I don't like putting myself out there, I've got nothing to talk about, why would people listen to me? Um, I don't have the time, you know, all of those things that come up that you might also relate to, uh they are very real, and that checklist will help you identify them and then move through some. So that is today's episode of How I Swore I Would Never Launch a Podcast. Yet I went and launched one anyway, the irony of it all. Uh, and next episode is going to be talking about those five big myths that I bust through my own journey and through working with clients and theirs too. So, as always, I hope that you have found this episode super valuable. I hope it has um given you either a hell yes or a hell no in terms of launching your own podcast. Um, and if it has given you a hell yes, then I hope it's really inspired you and made you feel really excited about the possibilities, um the collaboration, the growth of your business, uh, but also the fun that you can have along the way. So that's it from me. I look forward to seeing you in the next episode. Thanks so much for being here. If this episode recognition with you, if I could share it with a friend, colleague, or fellow business owner who might need to do it. And if you like a copy of the like, you can see that.