When you are new to podcasting, everything seems energetic. Some of you come in with a great amount of energy and excitement and you’re just killing it. It may be difficult to imagine when you might struggle to remain energetic or to think of topics to cover in your podcast. In this episode, we want to talk about how to keep your energy up so you can continue to podcast consistently because consistency is one of the major keys to being successful in podcasting.

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We always want to cover some subject related to podcasting and Brandcasting, whether it’s your show or your website. We have a subject in mind to cover and it’s one that’s especially good for a couple of new podcasters, which we have two on now. First off, because we have new clients. We do have that from time to time. If you’re new to how this works, it’s once a month we try to hit on a topic that you may have heard a recurring theme over the course of the month, industry news. We also try to touch on giving you an update on anything that might be happening because our platform is expanding and growing and upgrading and doing things all the time. There may be new features that you all have asked for that have been incorporated. We want to keep you updated on that. That’s the purpose of this show, then we open it up. It’s an opportunity to ask questions and deal with things that you’re having difficulties with and for us to do broader coaching. If you’re struggling with it, it may be the same thing for other people at your stage of podcasting. We wanted to give that framework for it.

Since you are new and podcasting and energetic, I’m sure you may find it difficult to imagine when you might struggle to remain energetic or have struggled for thinking of topics to cover in your podcast. That’s what we want to talk about now is keeping your energy up and your motivation up so that you continue to podcast consistently. Consistency is one of the major keys to being successful in podcasting. This is the thing. Some of you come in with a great amount of energy and excitement and killing it. We have a couple of people came in and put 25 episodes right into the queue to launch with, which is a great strategy. After having done that much work, you burn out a little bit and you get into this new pace and they’re like, “It’s only for this month, I can handle it,” and then you’re struggling to make sure that you get them done on time. Pacing yourself is important and having a plan for that. We hope it’s not a plan. This is a big thing we say every month. We say it every time we speak somewhere. Having a plan for how you’re going to handle it from the beginning is a good idea. You have a system to fall back on, a system that’s always working for you. That’s one of the things that we want to bring up now and start to talk about. It is a matter of renewing energy in your podcasting and making sure that it’s giving you something in the short-term and in the long-term because it is hard to stay focused on it.

We have this problem with our 3D Printing Podcast. We’ve reached over almost 530 episodes. After 530 episodes it’s like, “Did I talk about this already? Is there anything new to discuss? How many times should I cover filament again?” whatever the topic might be. This happened in my Inc. column as well because I’ve done over 175 articles. I was like, “I’m writing about gender bias again for the fifth time. Is that too many?” That’s where you sit back and you go, “Am I doing the right thing?” and you start to lose a little momentum and a little energy in it. We also want to sit in some places in which you can re-energize yourself and get excited about it again. We have a plan that we set out. We recommend it. When you are going into it, we want you to be in an area that is narrow but deep. We want a topic that’s narrow because it draws the right people to you, but we want it to be deep because you want to be able to talk for 530 episodes. We want to get you there. We want you to be able to dive in and have endless things to talk about and boundless energy to do it. You want to be able to keep that energy level up from episode one all the way through 530 and trust me, it is hard. Having focus on your show helps from the get-go. Also, sitting down and planning out. We have a running list of topics and we keep this on a Google doc. We keep this between all of us so we can type into it but occasionally one of us prints it out and puts Post-its all over or scratches it out.

It’s a running list of ideas. When they come to you, make sure you jot them down and keep a running list. That way you’re always getting into this mode of, “I thought of something new.” You’re not sitting down when you’re tired and you’re like, “I have to record now,” and you have no idea about what to record. You’re like, “I was talking to a client and I was talking to someone when I was out at an event and they gave me this idea of something that would be of interest to talk about.” Now you have energy again because you know that topic is valued. Keeping that and having a system for having a topic list is important. Remember, you can do anything in any order. If you’re not feeling it, take it. Don’t do it, skip it. Do something that you feel is the right thing for you now. That happens. Some days I don’t want to talk tech. We got to talk something different. That’s okay. Do that.

I also keep a running list of guest ideas. People I meet or people I talked to or books I read. I make it a practice once a month at minimum, I do it more often, I go on LinkedIn and I connect to them and invite them. If nothing happens with that, I keep this list also running so that I can go back the next month and reach out to them again and say, “I didn’t hear back from you. Maybe this isn’t your preferred method. I’m going to try and email you.” I try the next method next month. I do that and you can do it more often if you have a need to bring in a lot of guests. We don’t, people reach out to us at that stage. Once you grow in your podcast, you’ll have people reaching out to you. That’s also easy. Keeping that list and making sure that you’re keeping on it and having a system, it won’t be like, “I have to scramble. Who do I book?” You book someone who you’re not excited about and that’s how you start to lose energy because those shows don’t do as well. This is what you’ll find over time is that the shows that which you don’t bring full energy to are the shows that don’t have the traction. Your audience gets to know you better than you realized. They believe they know you. They feel you. You’re in their ears every week. If you’re having a bad day, it’s probably better to postpone recording that episode because it’ll come through and they’ll know it. They’ll feel it.

Your first question is the more important thing to worry about in your script. Click To Tweet

We’ve had it happen where we brought someone on who sounded great on paper. We were messaging back and forth. They were very knowledgeable and intelligent, but they get on the air and they’re dry and talk too slow or they read from their notes. They only want to talk about that and no matter what question you ask them, they head right back into their notes again. You’re the host. Pull the plug. That’s something that you can do. Do not let it drag down your show. You have to pull the plug. You’re in editorial control of things and if you’re not feeling it and if they’re not on, then you cut the cord. It’s the way things have to be in. You can’t let it panic you. Occasionally, we have missed episodes. I’m not going to kid you. We took a hiatus once because our daughter was getting married and it was way too much to handle. You can do that. You can take a breather if you need. You can pivot and reformulate your show if you’re losing energy in it. That is a time for you to reach out. We had a client do that. If you’re saying, “Something’s not working for me. It’s not growing at the pace that I want it. I’m not feeling the energy in it,” book a time with us. We are here to support you and here to help you strategize for a better way. Strategize a plan for yourself. Help formulate that. We’re here for you for that.

I want to also mention our first podcast, the one that has over 500 episodes. We’ve pivoted the content and the format of the show twice in its history. It’s time to do it again. I’ve been thinking about that for a while. It’s mulling in my head that it’s time to do it again. That’s a good idea because we need to regain some energy in that one. We started out in the beginning when it was a new podcast and there weren’t many podcasts in our subject area. We were doing five days a week because we wanted to build the audience fast, which was aggressive. It was a lot, but we did it. We published five days a week. We didn’t record five days a week. We took two days a month and recorded twenty episodes in those two days. Four days a week, we were answering a question from an audience member who would read in a question.

This is a little tip. If you need to create some content for your show to try to build an audience when you don’t have much of one yet, you can answer a question as the subject of a podcast when nobody even asked you a question. You’re like, “I got to asked this on social or at the last event I was at.” I used two or three of my high school buddies. They don’t know it but they asked me a question. I used their names and even the states they were from. It still created a lot of useful information and ways to start to get into a subject to talk about.

I’m doing that on my Product Launch Hazzards. I’ve started a third podcast. It’s a membership only podcast. I’m also training my members to learn to ask questions by doing that, by seeding in questions. Anyone who teaches you about PR and all of that says, “The host should have a set of questions, but the speaker should also provide some.” You can also ask your guest to provide some. You may or may not want to use them. I certainly would reward them to make sure that they’re in your own language or in your own viewpoint and interest. Otherwise, if you ask it exactly as they gave it to you, they end up sometimes a little too dry and in talking points. If you flip it a little bit and do a little twist on it, they have to think a little more and it becomes a little more off the cuff and original. Getting them prepared for you can also help you because it’s not as much work.

Back to the format discussion. When we started, four days a week we answered questions and one day a week we did an interview. That’s how we did that. We pivoted to doing a different themed subject every day of the week. While that podcast was on 3D printing, Mondays were a business related topic in 3D printing. Tuesdays were a technical topic within 3D printing. We had different formats and different formats at different times. We’ve pivoted a couple of times to bring new energy into it. Robert Kandell says he’s doing some small series of episodes in different niche topics within the genre of his show and putting that out as a different flavor of the show. We’re talking now about bringing new energy and reinvigorating a podcast, especially after your maybe 100 or 200 episodes in. There are many ways you can change the structure and the format of some of your shows or your episodes to freshen it up, to help you stay excited about it and continue to enjoy the journey.

 

Another way too is to bring in a cohost. If you don’t have a cohost right now, you can bring in a cohost. You can do some episodes together. You can also build up their authority along with yours and then separate them and let you each have your own day of the week or something like that. That can keep you in that energy of having multiple episodes but not have you have to do the work. A couple of our new podcasters have done that. They’ve come in with cohost and they do it together and they do separate as well. We’ve started doing that. We’ve added Alexandra to the Feed Your Brand podcast. She’ll occasionally do episodes when I’m not available and that way we’re not held up in our planning and that holds the energy up too. If we’re scrambling to record just when I’m available, then that makes it more difficult for everybody to stay in the mood, stay in the energy and keep podcasting at the pace which we need to. Back to the formatting of the plan for it is that when you’re initially pushing out all of your episodes, you’re getting started in and you get going and you’re putting whatever amount in the can. If you put three, 25 episodes whatever your model has been, you have a lot of energy around it because you’re launching. You’re in that excited launch mode. You must immediately follow that up with energy and with a plan for getting to make sure that you’re on your consistent number of episodes.

If you’re going to do four, make sure that you already have scheduled the next month so that you’re a whole month ahead of your recording. That will also help you feel not that tremendous pressure, which sometimes downs the ability to stay in the focus of the podcast. Make sure you’ve got all your guests scheduled. Make sure you’ve got your topic scheduled. Do it in a couple of days a month. Pick the days and force everybody to schedule on those days. You can do that. You’re the host. If you don’t want to do that and you want to do one call a week, then schedule a guest each week. Make sure that you’ve got someone scheduled each week for the next two months. Try to get yourself out at least two months. I talked to a podcaster and she said she was booked all the way out and had recorded everything she needs through July of 2019. That’s how much episode she has recorded. That is a record. I’ve had people been six months ahead, but that one was a record.

If I was a guest on that show, I’d be pretty unhappy that my episode wasn’t going to air for more than a year. This is what I’m going to say you’ll find is that’s a problem. When you’ve done it that far ahead, you could do it if you had a membership community, which she does. She was doing interviews with all the members as they come in and so it ended up booking up. The problem that happens is that then you lose the energy of their promotion of it and that doesn’t help you. I don’t recommend that far out. If you put out that far, then let’s start publishing two or three a week and get some more content out there sooner.

This was her process and I was like, “I don’t know how to tell you that that’s probably not the best strategy. It will hurt you in the promotion side of it and in the growth of your podcast. Those people maybe have moved on and been doing something completely different. It’s no longer relevant to what they were promoting or selling now so they don’t even want to share it.” You could run into those problems. I’m all for planning ahead and getting things done. I recommend two months. Right now, we’re planning and booking June. I’ve already booked May for the most part. I have one spot that somebody canceled and I have to move them around. Other than that, I’ve got May and I know who we’re going to record. Those episodes will air in June and now I’m working on June that will do for July. That’s a process of being ahead of it so it doesn’t feel under tremendous pressure. When you’re not under pressure, you perform better. You’ll have more energy and more excitement for it.

Remember that when you’re in our system here, you are all clients. If you get excited about a podcast that you recorded and it happens all the time. We have someone who does book out three or four months. He’s booked out and already completed podcast four. He gets excited about one and he wants to push it ahead. Go ahead. Nobody knows the order but you. If this makes sense now or something comes up and it’s more politically relevant or something that’s going on in the news and in action, move your episodes around. There is no reason not to. That gives you a little bit more freedom when you have that topic and that planning in the process. Keeping in that will keep you energized because you always have it scheduled. It’s always on your calendar. It’s not, “I have to get to this week,” and then it drops and it starts to fall off. You start to get behind and you start to miss episodes. When you start to miss episodes, it’s cascading like you slipped your diet. You might as well eat all the cookies. This is the processes by forcing it to be picked back up, even if you do have to cancel the week because you got sick and it happens. You got sick or you had to travel in an emergency. No problem, but your next week is scheduled so you’re not going to be completely off of your plan.

You don't have to have all the answers. You're the host and you're helping by bringing answers from others. Click To Tweet

It’s getting energy and getting excitement in. We touched on that a little bit. It’s about the topic and this is what I’m pivoting. What Robert is doing is a great way to do that. When you have some ideas, maybe you’re trying a new business model. This is why I’m thinking that we’ll be pivoting our 3D Print Podcast is because we got contacted by a book publisher who wants us to publish a book for professionals who want to either learn design. If they’re already 3D professionals, they want to learn design. If they’re designers, they want to learn 3D Printing. We want to cover both directions of it. I thought, “That’s interesting, but maybe we should test the topics.” Maybe we’ll put in a day a week for a couple of months and test the topics and see how they’re going.

That’s a great way for us to get energized about the book that we need to stay on schedule to write. When you have a publisher, you have to turn in your chapters on time. It’s totally different than self-publishing. Thinking about that is also another way in which you can get re-energized by something which is like, “This is a testing ground. This is an experiment for me. Should I test a new type of client that I want to touch base with or a new type of network that I want to tap into?” Take it as a challenge and excitement for the growth of your business. When you’re in that mode, it always feels innovative. It always feels it’s growing and you don’t lose that interest in it. The formulaic ones drop off pretty quickly.

I’m excited to see a lot more podcasters that we’re working with that are branching out. I know there are a couple of beginners on this and you’re doing great. Get started. Don’t overthink this. We definitely have some podcasters that are putting out different mini-series of episodes. It’s a brilliant marketing plan to put that out technically as a second or third podcast, even though it’s related subjects. One of them is in real estate note investing. Every Monday night, he does a certain type of episode and they were in his normal podcast. We split that off now into a spinoff podcast, but it’s those Monday episodes that are in a separate feed. They are slightly different topics. If you want to be focused on listening to all those topics, you subscribe to that feed. It’s obviously pushed out on the main feed. It makes perfect sense. He did the same thing with a four-day course that he did.

It’s almost like a limited run. Think of it as a mini-series. He’s done a 25-part series from this boot camp that he did, putting it out as a premium podcast that you have to pay for. That was a completely different flavor or way to do it. That’s an interesting idea. This is your chance to do a testing ground and to try some of these things and spin them off. If you’re getting stale in your podcast and you’re starting to feel like, “I’m talking to the same old people or doing the same old thing or repeating myself too much.” Now’s the time for us to have a strategy call and for us to help you refocus because it’s a perfect time for a pivot. Your audience may be expecting to fall off as well. That can happen. If they feel they haven’t gotten anything new in a while, they’ll swap.

Podcast listeners, I hate to say this, but they’re fickle. They’ll switch to the next new podcaster. We got to keep them excited and keep them energized and keep them in the element of all the things that you can continue to do and provide for them and also attract new. That’s also if there’s something new going on. You’ve got to stay competitive. It’s because you formulated your show a year earlier or whenever you may have, it doesn’t mean that it’s following the model of lots of new podcasters that are coming on now. If you feel you need to have that discussion, come reach out to us because we’re happy to talk about all the different formatting and all the different possibilities.

 

There are endless possibilities in reality. The point I want to talk about now is if you get to a point where you’re feeling like your motivation level is dropping or you’re getting stuck or you’re wondering where to go next. Whether that’s in the beginning trying to find your groove or it’s after you’ve been doing it for quite a while, know there are lots of options. We’re here to help. We’re happy to be a sounding board and brainstorm with you and figure out what that next evolution of your show is. A podcast audience is a wonderful thing, but it also needs to be not only something you enjoy doing so you keep doing it, but it needs to serve your business. That’s the way we’re doing it. There are some out there that don’t serve business, but that’s not what we’re about.

One of the things is if it is in service to your business every time you get on it. The one we were talking about, the membership site that I’ve got running for Product Launch Hazzards, it’s a model that I talked to someone else. They want to start out with that model because it’s going to work well for them. It’s a format that will be able to grow for them. My format of it is I am starting it. I am the main host of it and I am sponsoring it, but I’ve set up experts who will each be taking over and doing their own solo episodes all the time. It will have such a mix of people that I’ll only be doing probably 10% of the work. It’s going to work well for what I want to do because that business is basically not our core business right now, you guys are. I didn’t want to leave my membership because I have a tremendous amount of email lists. I didn’t want to leave them without the services, without people, without resources.

This is my way of transferring authority to all of them and letting them go, but each one of them doesn’t have to start their own podcast. That’s also a benefit for them. It’s a whole new way of looking at it and we’re testing these out for you guys all the time. We have lots of other podcasters who’ve been podcasting for a while and experimenting with new formats. When they work, we want to share them with you, especially if they’re right for you and your business isn’t being served well by it day in and day out. Robert, you’ve hit a plateau in your podcast in terms of the number of podcast plays per episode or per month.

I can see the pattern. I’ve definitely had a great number. About 12,000 per month, which is a big upswing a few months ago, but I want to get to that 20,000 to 50,000. That’s my goal. I don’t have a lot of surplus time because I’m running many other things. Do you have any thoughts on how to bump it up to the next level?

How are you getting listeners now? What is your general marketing practice?

Choosing guests that have a large presence on social media or a large following can help grow your show audience more quickly. Click To Tweet

I have a strong Facebook and Instagram presence. I also do a lot of guest podcasts. I pay a podcast agent to put me on other shows. I do four to five other shows a month. I have more shows as well. I went from one episode a week to two for most weeks. It’s working. I want to get to that 50,000 per month and not sure exactly how to break through to the other side.

Are you doing live streams on your Facebook?

Do you mean from the podcast at the same time?

In general, do you do lives at all on your Facebook?

I’ve been in the past. I’ve been storing up and have a social media strategy to do with my book launch, but that’s coming soon.

Podcast Energy: By sharing other people’s posts in others groups and tagging them, you’re showing that you will reciprocate and they’re more likely to do that for you.

 

Live streams get a little more circulation among your Facebook friends and bigger groups on your page. Do it once a week, even if you went on Friday mornings. I don’t know when your episodes air. Assuming they already aired earlier in the week, Friday mornings are a great time to go on and say, “Before you hit the weekend, you’re going to want to download my two podcasts because they’re on this subject and this subject. I know they’re of interest to you,” or why you did them. Make it short. Make it less than two minutes. Doing that little short live stream will bump out. If they didn’t get served your post by the Facebook algorithm, that would get their attention. Another thing that I did to promote a podcast that we did that was something we wanted to push out. It was a special episode. It was recorded live at an event. I did a Facebook Live video where it was me after the fact talking about it and announcing it. This episode was recorded in video as well as audio, which was unusual for us. I know you for a while were recording your interviews as a video also. Isn’t that right, Robert?

I do it via Zoom. I do a live show every week.

What I did is I took a one-minute clip of that video and an excerpt of the podcast that I thought was a great quote. I used a program called Ecamm Live where I went on and went live on Facebook, which I know you can do with Zoom. What Ecamm Live allowed me to do is not only to talk and make this announcement but then I played a prerecorded clip from that video over Facebook Live. Ecamm Live is a cheap program. It’s $39 one-time buy. It only works on the Mac platform. I don’t know if that’s a problem for you. It allows you to take a prerecorded segment. You’re not supposed to and Facebook has a policy where you’re not supposed to go Facebook Live with a completely prerecorded video.

They do allow you specifically to do this type of thing and play a clip of something pre-recorded. You can give people a preview and because it’s Facebook Live, it’s going to get pushed out to more of your followers. You can give them a little taste of why they should go and listen to the podcast upcoming. It doesn’t have to be long. It could be a five-minute Facebook Live. It doesn’t have to be terribly long. You might consider doing some things like that and trying to give your people more of a taste. Don’t forget when you’re going Facebook Live, I’ve had this happen with a few of our clients here at Brandcasters when they’re putting things on Facebook. They forget to make their live posts public. They make it only to their friends, which are only going to be seen by people that already know you. Make sure it’s public.

The other strategy is to be sure to share other people’s posts in other’s groups and invite them to share yours by tagging them. I do these videos and stuff for inventors all the time. I’ll say, “InventRight group, this is an interesting take on nondisclosure agreements.” I know that sounds dry, but we did do it. I said, “I thought you guys would be interested,” and sure enough whoever was in control of that group read it and thought, “That was useful,” and then reposted it. That was my article and not a video. If you tag them on it, it doesn’t always get promoted to their group. The group will see that you’re interacting with them and then they will usually start paying attention and put you in their feed to share. If they’re controlled by any social media practices, good practices that a third of what you do should be a share of other people’s stuff. They are looking for good other people’s stuff. By you sharing you’re showing that, you’ll reciprocate and they’re more likely to do that for you.

Just go with it and, above all else, be be real. Click To Tweet

I have two more suggestions. One is a lower budget item. If you’re trying not to spend a lot more money on promotion to increase your audience, then that might be another way to go. There are options that do cost a little more if you’re interested in putting a little money into the promotion of your show to build that audience. We have a couple of different resources that we’ve had. One of them has a podcast promotion program that’s more high-powered than what you were suggesting. Somebody’s getting you on as many other podcasts. This is like a PR program that uses more traditional media.

It’s getting on another podcast, but also getting written up in different print medium online and actual print, also even television to try to get interviews about your topic, your show and get the word out. It is a paid option if you’re interested in that. They usually do $2,000 a month for three months, a 90-day program to give your show a big boost. If you’re interested in something like that, let us know and we’ll connect you. I’m going to share with you SelfGrowth.com. A guy who I like and I’m giving him no better named David Riklan and I can connect you. He has this thing called the Social Media Mogul Club. I haven’t tried this yet, but I like the concept of it. It costs $500 for a year. They put you in a group with ten or twelve other business people in genres that make sense or business categories that make sense. They’re not completely in left field from each other that your audiences wouldn’t make sense to combine. You’re also not overlapping and on top of each other. You don’t put six attorneys altogether. It doesn’t work like that. The idea is that all the people in your little club are connected on Facebook and also on LinkedIn. Every week, each of you puts out posts and you all commit to sharing each other’s posts over the course of the week. If you’re doing all your social media yourself, this could give you a lot of work to do. If you have an assistant who is helping you with any of that or if you’re using a tool like Buffer, then it’s easy.

I have an assistant that’s helping me.

It’s a reciprocal arrangement where they’re pushing your stuff out to everybody following them all the time and then you’re doing the same with their stuff and you’re all helping each other. It’s an inexpensive way. I can’t give you any numbers on results from it, but I’ve just been introduced to it. I like the concept but I haven’t tried it. It’s worth trying. The one last thing that I will also like to add for you is switching up your strategy with the guesting on the podcast. I don’t know who you’re using, but we know a lot of them and we have partnerships with many. Their typical process is to find you a high enough profile with enough listeners and that thing. If you can find podcasts, it doesn’t even matter what it’s about.

We have some that are chiropractors and attorneys. Why would they communicate with each other? Attorneys have a stressful job. If there’s a match in personality, it’s also important for you to consider being a guest on their show. If the host connects with you and likes you, their people tend to connect and like you. That’s a really good match show. That’s one that we found to be more successful. This is your opportunity to have an audience introduction. When that’s a better fit with that audience, not just from topics but personality as well, it works better than it does if there’s a large listenership. You can talk to them about different strategies as like, “Let’s mix it up this month. Let’s go on stuff we would never imagine but I know that my personality and what I have to share is going to be unique and different.” Your first little additional show hasn’t launched yet. When that starts to happen, you may also see a bump. We’re going to do this so that the descriptions of the shows, enough of the keywords are related. If anybody pulls up one of your shows, the other ones should come up also. As you do that, you’re going to start to see a boost because you will come up twice as much in searches on the podcast channels when people are searching for your show. From the podcast side, that and itself will be helpful. I hope there are a few suggestions there that would help you.

 

I liked the Facebook Live point of clips. I checked out Ecamm Live, that’s great. Thank you very much.

You’re welcome. Kimchi, let’s talk about your question. It takes you two plus hours to write the introduction and conclusion for each of the interviews. Sometimes you don’t know what to say. I can understand, Kimchi, why you might want to write it out. Do you feel it necessary to write out your introduction before trying to record it?

Basically, I want people to have a sense of what to expect in an interview. The way I do it is during the interview I say, “Welcome to the Asian Women Of Power Podcast,” and then I start asking them question after question. After that interview, I rewrite whatever notes I jot down and then review it and then say, “How do I want to introduce this guest speaker?” I’m setting the framework before I read their bio. That’s how I do it.

This is the thing. I’m a writer so I’m tempted to do the same thing as you. When you write it out all the way, first off, it tends to not be delivered in the energy that you intended. It tends to happen because you’re concerned about, “I spent the time to write on this. I better be exact about it.” It loses a little energy and momentum in the introduction process. A professional host never writes down introductions. They write down bullet points. That may be a better way to do it. You may be put a phrase you don’t want to miss saying about why they’re a woman of power. Whatever that phrase is you want to be able to say because it fits into your Ego Bait™ and it makes them feel like you value them. You make sure that you write that phrase out. It’s a five to eight-word description of your view of who they are and then bullet points on the accomplishments that highlight why you say that. Keep it simple there. From there, your first question is the most important thing to worry about and to script.

We find it happens often and this is bad practices. We did a Feed Your Brand episode with Maria Ngo and Ray DuGray. They were talking about these professional styles of interviews and videos because they do these professional red carpet interviews. What she was saying is that you see it often that people make this mistake when they are starting out and they do this, “Welcome to the show. Hi, how are you?” Rather than get them to dive into who they are and get them to start in with what their expertise is, it’s a little wasted airtime and unnecessary. You can say, “Thank you so much for joining me. I want to get right to the point and dive in about why you did this or how you got started doing that.” You dive into that deep burning question that would also introduce them. Doing those two things will help situate it so that you’ve got a nice little short intro here, but you’re going to let them talk about themselves. One of the things that I also find is that when you rely on their bios, their bios tend to be outdated, unless they are up on them all times or take a lot of, “These are my accomplishments but it’s not what I’m about now.” You can also get steered wrong and then the conversation deviates from the bio you wrote. Did that help a little bit, Kimchi?

Cross promoting will help you a lot. Click To Tweet

Yeah, it does help.

The thing that I would encourage you to do is even if it’s taking you too long figuring out your introduction and your conclusion for each show, it will get easier the more that you do it. Even though you’re only going to air one per week if you can schedule six or eight interviews in the next couple of weeks. I would do as many as you can because the more you do it, the easier it will become. The more comfortable you will be talking about what it is that you think your audience will be interested in this guest in an introduction without having to write it all. Having a bio your guest maybe has provided you handy to read part of their bio, that’s fine. I read from bios all the time when I’m getting to the background about the guest.

I’ll take the bio and I highlight rather than bullet point it. I highlight it so I can read it while I’m holding it. I’m not on video so it’s also not distracting. If you are doing video as well, that may be not the best technique for you because you’re over here reading the bio. I’ve seen it happen where somebody is like, “Let me look up your bio here.” That’s not the most professional way. Definitely print it out, big enough type and highlight it. That’s one of the ways that I do that frequently. I want to touch on the conclusion though for Kimchi. It’s one thing to have your close. This is something you should spend a couple of hours writing your close and making sure that you’re comfortable with it. It’s like, “How am I going to do the throw to my podcast subscription, making sure people are subscribing, throw out to my social media, throw out on my website.” Make sure that you’ve got that system down and you get comfortable with the close and you revise it until you feel that it’s right for you. That’s the true closure and end to the show.

We’ve done it so often. We have a pattern. We switched it up. One of us says it and the other one doesn’t and then we switch it up. In the next episode, it’s the opposite. We get comfortable with it, but it took us getting that right in the beginning and finessing it until we got it right. Definitely write that part. Concluding after someone has been interviewed is a difficult thing to do ahead of time. Don’t write that type of stuff out. Write your own personal close to it. If there isn’t anything that you thought about or nothing occurred in your head when you’re interviewing them, it’s like, “She’s got me thinking.” When you hang up this call or you close down your Zoom, what would you go and say to your best friend and go, “I talked to this woman and she was incredible and she said this? That got me thinking about whether or not I’m doing this in my life?” That’s the thing you want to say on air. Unless it struck a chord and hit you while you were in it, you couldn’t know that ahead of time. You want to have a thank you. You want to have the close, but everything else should be off the cuff and be genuinely you. That’s what we’re there to listen to is how authentic you are. Does that help?

Yeah, that’s what I do too. I always have a call to action. Basically, I ask them, “What are the three things you learned from this interview? What will you implement right away? Give me your input. Write it to me. Give me feedback on how you deal with that.” That’s my conclusion. I always suggest to them to think about what had been discussed in the interview and what action they are going to do about it.

 

Do you suggest what you would do? Do you suggest and say, “She got me thinking and I’m going to do this. Now, I want to know what you’re going to do.” Sometimes making it personal, especially early on in your podcast by personally contributing and demoing how it works makes people more comfortable to contribute.

Even though the other person is a life coach as well as me?

We’re always on a learning journey and you can say it that way. “We’re always on a learning journey and this struck something that I’ve been thinking about implementing myself,” or, “I’m going to expand this more for it. I’ve been doing this for some time.” It’s a way for you to show your expertise. It’s also a way for you to be authentic and people want to know who the real Kimchi is when they’re listening to you. You don’t have to be the expert on everything. You don’t have to have all the answers because you’re the host and you’re helping bring inspiration and answers from others into them. They will value you no matter what. It’s okay if you’re growing too. I’m glad you came on the show, Kimchi.

Thank you.

Rachel, you say you have a list of topics for the next 30 days, but I want to clarify that. Do you mean for four episodes over the next month or you have more than four episodes of topics figured out?

I have more than four episodes certainly. The show was coming from me as a Gen X and then my daughter as a Millennial. The thing is that there are a lot of things that we discussed, especially when designing and marketing for our clients. Usually, I’m on the back end so this is new for me. I know you guys know me.

We know you and we’re thrilled that you’re putting yourself out there.

First of all, I’m not comfortable with my voice but I’m like, “This mic makes me sound so much sexier.”

I admitted that on stage. I said it up on stage and everyone has their fears and when I first started I was like, “Who wants to listen to my high squeaky voice?” That’s how I heard it in my head. What we hear in our head is not how it’s received.

That’s what I have to get over because this is what I tell my clients. The thing is that I make my clients get on Facebook Live. They’re like, “When are you going to go on Facebook Live?” I’m like, “I’m not sure yet.”

I have to get over having my hair done for the video. There you go. We all have those things. The format of your show is going to keep a lot of energy in it because you’ve got your daughter involved in it. I started recording some episodes this past month with my daughter and her works with us and co-hosting and it was fun. Although a lot of people who listened didn’t realize it was Tracy because their voices sound the same. It does change it up a little bit. You’re asking should I also add interviews. There is a strategic reason why you may want to add interviews. Whether that’s additional episodes published in the same week over the course of the month or you alternate one week with this kind, one week the other kind. The reason that you should consider guests interviews, especially if you choose guests that have a large presence on social media. A large following or somehow have a large list, even if it’s an email list. You’re going to incentivize them to push it out. We talked about Ego Bait™ and some of the things that you can use for that. The point is it can help grow your show audience more quickly because you are getting exposure to groups of people to large audiences that otherwise might not have known about your show.

You’re drafting off their influence and their access to their people and that’s helping you grow your show. It is a good early on strategy, especially when you don’t have a big email list yourself or you’re not going to dive right deep in with the listenership. How can you do it? What Robert is doing, which is going on other people’s podcasts that already have the right type of audience that you might attract. Let’s say you’re going on other digital marketing podcasts, but their digital marketing and they’re on the marketing trends and the marketing focus. You’re more on the design side of things. That may be a great match and appeal because they don’t talk about that every day but your audience is a good match. You might draft off and siphon off some of those that are interested in a deeper dive in the design side of things or in that marketing plus design connection. Rachel, we’re friends on LinkedIn. Go see the article I posted. It was about A Love Letter from Design to Marketing. It was brilliant and funny and you’re going to love it. I posted an article that was off of the Chicago Gift Show blog page. A friend of mine wrote it and it was amazing.

You answered the question earlier for Kimchi. I was feeling like, “Do I have to know everything?” because I don’t know everything. I know a lot but I know I don’t know everything. That’s why I had my daughter come on. She has a following. She’s a blogger. She has a huge following and she’s a book reviewer. She has a big following there. She’s got authors.

You’re already drafting off an influencer. Good for you.

That’s what we’re feeding off of. We’re feeding off of ideas and things that her book authors are doing to pull and hook and generate leads. We were having a conversation and this is what we transcend to, “If you’re in business, whether you’re an author or you’re a blogger and you want more followship, why don’t you take these techniques and use them?” That’s how we’re formulating the show.

That conversation is fantastic. It’s why I like being a cohost. It’s a lot easier than when I record an episode that’s just me and I do both. We cannot always be together and the show must go on. I’ve recorded probably half a dozen episodes just me lately. I still think they’re pretty good but as a host, I enjoy it more when it’s the two of us and we have an honest dialogue. We’re real with each other and the audience feels that, knows it and they like that dialogue. That’s a great format for your show in general. To have a guest once in a while, even if it’s not for the entire show, maybe it’s only for five minutes later in the show or ten minutes. You can have a conversation about a subject and have them come in for a little bit.

It’s a little more planning work. We have one of our do-it-yourself podcasters. She built her own podcast. She went through our course and we absolutely adore her, Athena Rosette. She did an episode that you can hear and listen to on Feed Your Brand. She pivoted her podcast and started a new formulation. They were all conversations with women’s voices like where’s the power in our voice. She did an interview with me and the way she structured her questions were planned in such a way so that she could break my interview up into four pieces. She wasn’t going to air it all together. She was going to air me along with a couple of other women talking about how it is to be a working mom. How it is to be a woman whose voice is constantly out there? There were a bunch of different questions and she was going to group them and plan them. When she interviewed us, she was booking out and looking at these four topic-based episodes. You could do that simply with one person. You don’t have to do it with multiples.

The thing is that she’s a little quirky at times. We’re here laughing and sometimes I’m like, “Am I going in the right direction?” We keep honing it back into the business aspect of it. She brings a little bit of life because I’m a little more monotone.

Go with it and above all else be real. There are going to be certain aspects that the Millennial generation is going to like better and there are going to be a more mature audience that’s going to like the aspects that you bring to the show. It could have great broad appeal. I’m sure you’re already planning on this because you’re a marketer, but you definitely want to be pushing it out to your daughter’s following in social media. Dr. Nilda needs to be promoting your show or run some promotion on her show for yours and on your show for her show. Cross-promoting will help you a lot.

The other thing I was going to suggest on another side is let’s say you guys do a topic that gets a lot of conversation. I’m going to make this up, but let’s say you have a conversation about how ugly direct response marketing pages are. It’s controversial and you start to get information overload. There’s too much information here and you start to generate conversation on that. If you start to see a topic like that, you go, “I’m going to go talk to my friend Dustin Mathews, who is a direct response marketing expert from way back when. I’m going to bring him on to interview him on the show about it and about how it has gotten maybe less and less wordy over time and a little more visual.” Bring in an expert because you found this topic of interest. That’s a good way to plan it because now you’re serving your audience because you know what their feedback has been.

You could record that topic subject not knowing who you might interview and interject a question for. You can record that first and think, “Who would be a great person to talk to about that? It would be Dustin.” Get in touch with Dustin and hopefully within a week or two could get him on for a five-minute call to answer a question. You’ve got something there. It doesn’t matter if he’s on your show for five minutes or 40 minutes, he’s still going to push it out. He’s going to share.

There are times that we both get stuck and we’ll ask a question. I’ll say, “Should I know this question?”

Admit it if you don’t know it and to say, “I don’t know that. We’re going to look into that and we’re going to get an expert on the show to talk about that because I’m intrigued. I want to learn here and I want to be inspired by the next generation and by the topics and by what I don’t know.” We’re all inventing it here because everything around digital marketing is new.

The thing is that you have no idea. With my daughter being involved and then my youngest, which is Gen Z, she’s telling me things about fandom. I’m like, “What the heck is fandom?” When she was explaining that to me, I said, “We’re going to do this show.” That’s a whole other topic. I’m like, “If my generation is not using it for their business, I’m throwing in the towel.”

Thanks so much, Rachel. Thank you to everybody for hanging on through the whole thing. This is one of the first calls where everybody who came on in the beginning stayed the whole time. Thank you. I appreciate that.

I learned something from everyone.

Let us know what you’d like to talk about. Write in ahead of time and we’ll be happy to prepare some subjects or what you’d like to hear coming up. You can go onto the dashboard if you want and submit a help ticket if you want to submit that way. If you have our email, you can email us. Thanks.

Important Links:

• 3D Printing Podcast
• Product Launch Hazzards
• Robert Kandell
• Feed Your Brand
• Ecamm Live
• InventRight
• SelfGrowth.com
• Social Media Mogul Club
• Buffer
• Asian Women Of Power Podcast
• Maria Ngo and Ray DuGray – FYB episode
• Rachel – Marketing Whisperer Podcast
• Athena Rosette – FYB episode
• Dr. Nilda
• Dustin Mathews