From Hidden To Heard, Get SEEN with a Podcast - using the tech you already have! - Chantelle Dyson

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Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chantelledyson/

[00:00:01]: Welcome to this training on how to start a podcast, boost your brand and get more leads quickly and easily. Now, I don't have a lot of time, so it's going to be a little bit of a whistle stop tour to do this, but hopefully you can grasp the understanding of how you can get your podcast started using some of the stuff that is right in front of you as we speak. You've probably got your phone within a close distance to you, I imagine, and that is all you need to start your podcast in the very first instance. But before we get onto that, how do you currently get seen online? This is one of the biggest challenges that there is with the current online space. And I can imagine if you just take a moment to think about that, you probably came up with something along these lines. And as you can see in there, podcasting is in there. And a lot of people seem to think that all of these different ways, however, feel a bit like this. Whether it's social media, whether it's pr, whether it's Google SEO, guesting, influencing or doing a podcast, all of it can seem like it drains you.  

[00:01:04]: And when it comes to a podcast, a lot of people are thinking, how the heck am I gonna do all of this? I can't even keep up with social media, let alone doing a podcast. They start to think I've got to have the most fancy studio, the best background, the best equipment, and I need a bunch of people who are going to listen to it. However, podcasting is what can lead you to what I like to call your golden piece of content. And this is how I took my following and grew it. Because when I first started a podcast, this was what it looked like in the first week. And no, that's not a failure by any means, but this was me putting it out there. I didn't really want people to know very much that it was going on. I don't have a single post that promotes it.  

[00:01:54]: I don't know who the 18 are. Most of them are probably me. In the first week, checking, it worked, listening to the intro and listening to the episode, so we'll take a few off of that. But some way, somehow, once I did eventually get over being a little bit worried about putting myself out there, started to post online about it, use the podcast to promote itself, and started to gain traction with the downloads. And in just two years, just over, it reached 100,000 downloads. This was all about single life, helping women to embrace being single, not feel like they had to date, but doing a little bit of the dating Chat as well. And it started to build this community of women, to overcome loneliness, build friendships and connection. But this all came back to the principle that my podcast could.

[00:02:40]: Could be my golden piece of content. And it can be yours too, because your golden piece of content takes away all of the element of having to come up with new ideas every single day, posting something brand new and simplifying it for you. Because when you record one weekly podcast episode, I'm going to emphasize that it is weekly. You can turn that podcast into other stuff too, if you run video, which you might not quite at the start. I do advocate for the fact that if you start from the beginning, it's always going to be best, even if you don't use it in the ways I'm about to show you. But I have no option for my first 18 episodes. 17 episodes. It was only until episode 18 that I started to do video.  

[00:03:20]: And I'm gutted because I just imagine having those 17 on video. Oh, even more stuff to put online. Whereas I can't really promote those ones very well. It's really hard to promote audio only. But either way, you can turn it into a YouTube video and you can turn it into a blog post as well. But then from the YouTube video, it's not just, you know, a YouTube channel, it's then the snippets you can get from it. You can put those snippets out on TikTok, Instagram reels, Facebook reels, LinkedIn, all those places. And you can also just post a video to Pinterest as well.  

[00:03:49]: And the blog post does the same, because video is one element, written word is the other. It can become an email, it can become quotes to use as little graphics. It can become its own Instagram carousel. And in fact, the blog can be multiple blogs if you break each section down and go in in a little more depth. Which also helps you with your podcast content strategy over time as well. But I know that jumping into a podcast might not be for everyone, and I want to help you get your podcast started and address some of the biggest things that are in your way right now. Plus, at the end, I'll be giving you something that means you can actually go away. And now that you're ready to do that, actually implement it, because going through the exact steps and the technical stuff takes more than 20 minutes.  

[00:04:34]: But I'm giving you all the things to get you ready to jump start your podcast, and then you've got something to follow on afterwards. So a lot of the time I find that people Even though they feel like they want a podcast, this kind of. These kind of doubts come in, such as, why would anyone want to listen to me? Doesn't everyone have a podcast right now? And what if no one actually listens to me? Now, I can calm you down about a few of those things. If you head to some of the stats that we can get on podcast. It sure feels like everyone's got a podcast, especially in the kind of coaching space, online business space, anything like that. Doesn't everyone have one? And There are over 4 million podcasts registered on the podcast index, which tells us how many shows there are. But at the time of recording this, just about there were only 6,70,000 shows that released an episode in the last three days and 240 odd thousand shows that released a show in the last 10 days. Now, I call a podcast live if it's actively putting a podcast out weekly.  

[00:05:39]: I mean, you can get away fortnightly, but the reality is most humans on this earth are working to a weekly schedule, and you need to find a space in someone's weekly schedule. You need to be their Thursday morning drive home. You need to be there Wednesday night gym class, whatever it is, you need to be part of their routine. So if we average and take a generous guess that there are 200,000 podcasts this week that published in the last seven days, based on it being 70,000 and 240,000, that is just over 4% of podcasts that shows that exist that are actually live. We are not competing with 4 million, we're competing with 200,000 across the globe. So when we say, does everyone have the podcast? We're not really worried. What I want to do is address the other part, which is to make sure that you are listened to, because it can feel like even with those 200,000, we're gonna need to be able to get some noise made in our direction. So I want to help you work out how you're going to stand out online so that you can get your podcast started and not have the fear of not being listened to.  

[00:06:42]: Even though I went through it, only 18 people in that first week, don't forget. And the way to do this is to choose the right topic for maximum impact. Now, if you're anything like me, the reason that you got into podcasting was because you started listening to podcasts and it probably helped you at some point in your life and the experience you were going through to widen your perspectives, to learn something new. You couldn't read books quick enough. You had to do it Double it up. And audiobooks and podcasts became a thing. And this is great. When we hear one podcast, Lovely, there it is.

[00:07:13]: It exists. We hear it and we're like, oh, my God, that is life changing. And more people need to know it. And so we decide we're going to say the same things on our podcast. Lovely. But then someone else listens to those two podcasts, and then there's two more podcast people that decide to go out there and say very similar things. And then of those four, someone else listen to each of those podcasts and decide they're going to start a podcast. And suddenly we are exponentially growing to this situation where everybody is talking about the same stuff.  

[00:07:40]: And it's fine, of course, to reference things that have helped you. Gosh, I wouldn't have anything to talk about if I didn't reference some of the books that I'd read in my podcast and in my journey. But there is a danger that if you do that and then you constantly cite, like, the same people, you do not stand out and you blend in. Because if they can get it on another podcast, why would they come to you? Yeah, there's a bit of your original story in there, but are you adding that in enough? And this is where I need you to do a little bit of this. Because part of the powerful podcast method is to have a visionary strategy. And to have a visionary strategy, you need to be a vip. We are not like the other podcast hosts that are out there. We've got to have a little bit more energy.  

[00:08:23]: And by VIP, I mean, firstly, be visionary, be original in some of the things that you create. I want you coming up with concepts and ideas that no one else ever has before. Deductions, observations. And yeah, sure, someone probably has come up with something, but you didn't hear it and then just regurgitate it. You saw it happening. You observed it in your life, you went through it specifically. Or if you are using something that came from somebody else as the original idea, you are going to put your spin on it. You're going to identify your niche specifically.  

[00:08:57]: I struggle with this at the start myself, so I know what this kind of thing can do when it comes to podcasting. I did start in social media. I was moving out of the space of life coaching, being like, I love the social media, I love the marketing, I love the personal branding. But it was really vague. People were going, oh, can you do LinkedIn? Can you do that? No, I can't. And I was like, what do I really stand for here? Podcast. This was my way of getting seen. Having the one big, what I've just described to you, golden piece of content and regurgitating it, regurgitating it, repurposing it in different places.  

[00:09:25]: And yes, that fed into social media, but it was podcasting that sat at the bottom of it. So now I do podcasting for life coaches and therapists in particular, because that's the background I had as a life coach. So it grows from there. And lastly, put the human element into it. You have got to put your spin on, you've got to tell your story as you go along. This will help you naturally differentiate. Anyway, and that brings me on to the first element of the powerful podcast method, which is having that visionary strategy. Now, the next area that we're going to look at, these might be things that you have said before, which is, I'm not a tech person, I don't like tech, I don't want to touch it.  

[00:10:05]: If I can avoid it, then great. You might be thinking, as I mentioned earlier, do I need to hire a studio? Like, I'm okay just recording my house? Or you might be thinking, how much is all of this fancy equipment going to cost me? Now, to address that concept of do I need all this extra tech? Do I need some fancy setup? I mean, obviously if you have the budget and you have the team, there's good reason to do it. But sometimes podcasting might be harder than you think. And I'm going to make it as simple as possible for you and easy to get started. But ultimately I have to address the fact that podcasting is hard work. It is a long game. This is not a get famous quick overnight. There's no overnight success story with a podcast.  

[00:10:49]: The podcasts that chart very quickly are often from well known people. There are ways to trick the algorithms to get in the charts, but the chart success doesn't actually make you successful. I'm here to make sure that you make a fantastic podcast that really makes a difference in the world and that does well in the charts at some point by its own merit, because you got good, because you made your content great, because you improve the quality. All I need to do today is to get you to think this is what I want to do and then get it started. And I'm going to make sure I give you the path of least resistance to do that, whether you work with me in the future or not. I want to do that because I know that these podcasts can make a difference. Podcasts change my life. I know my podcast has changed other people's lives and their businesses now.  

[00:11:30]: And I know you with whatever drive that you have, probably can do that as well. And it's going to bring you leads at the same time if we get you started. But we are just going to make sure that you use the essential tech to get your podcast started. Not all the bells and whistles. At this point, I want you to start with free trials with stuff you've already got. Get it up and running. Once you get to a little bit of a point, you start to invest a little bit. We have to start paying for stuff because the free trials run out.

[00:11:55]: We've got to make it sound maybe a little bit better or look a little bit better and invest a bit more and later down the line you can improve. So this is a little image kind of thing I looked like when I first started. It's quite an accurate little AI character that's come up, but this is genuinely what I look like. This was my very first mic microphone set up. It's not what I use now, but you can see there I've got those headphones from when I was traveling through stunted airport, realized I forgot my headphones. And it's that classic being mugged off at the airport, having to buy headphones. How many of you have done that? Because I've done it all the time. Probably got about three pairs as a result.  

[00:12:29]: So they're just plugged in. They're not industry standard by any means. And I am sound engineer. My degree is in sound. I used to work on the West End theater shows. That's not what you'd be using if we were on that, but it does the trick. So I started with audio only to my detriment, but for some it's just that's all you need. You don't want to worry about what you're looking like on camera.  

[00:12:48]: You just want to get started. And I started with a little microphone called Asure MV88. I did buy it. You can actually get away with just using your phone, but I didn't think of that at the time. I edited it on Reaper. It's a free to try software that I've used since I was 16 when I was mixing songs for our house karaoke event and I hosted it on buzzsprout. Buzzsprout is I think, the friendliest platform with the best tools for growth steadily. And there's a 90 day free trial, plenty of others that you can try.  

[00:13:20]: But to have a podcast, you must host it somewhere so that you can get it listed on Spotify and Apple Podcast free for now turns into something like $12 or so for their lowest plan. After the 90 days, you must sign up or so start deleting your episodes. As mentioned, it took me 18 episodes before I started using video. But for that video, even now I still use my very trusty iPhone 12 Pro Max, which I've had or has been running since 2022. So it's been solidly recording every episode or for three years. I was checking it was 2022. It might have been earlier, actually. I know it's about the right time.

[00:13:55]: 2022 for three years. It's three and a half years now. It's. It's done almost all the 200 episodes because it's done the podcast podcast episodes as well. And I edit on imovie, comes with my MacBook. Anyway, I have produced over 120 episodes. Sorry, not 200, 120 episodes for the single Spark, plus 26 or so or 20 or so for the latest one. That was podcast about podcasts.  Speaker A

[00:14:21]: And I have now changed to the blue Yeti microphone. But you can get started with the phone you have in your hand, audio only, using voice notes. And the beautiful thing about it is if you go wrong, you can hit pause on it. There's a pause button where you can stop, pull the little cursor back and hit record again and it will record over the error you just made. Otherwise you can get something like a blue Yeti mic. It's not the best overall, but loads of creators use it. It's a nice budget MIC for about £100 as we speak on Amazon right now. And then you can use your phone otherwise, but do a basic tech setup and with the little course I've got for you at the end that you can sign up to mini course.

[00:15:05]: I'll go through the exacts of this again. I haven't got enough time to go through every potential option, but just to give you a bit of a flavor. So that is the concept of progressive production. You do not have to have this all sorted out right now. Now, finally, there are a few other elements that feed into this. I don't have the time. We all don't have the time. I don't want to spend all the time on my phone making content all day, every day.  

[00:15:33]: And the other side of it is, then I'm scared to use AI. I mean, if you're scared to use AI, buckle up, because AI is about to become integrated into all our lives, whether we like it or not. It's like the Internet. I'm sure there are people that are scared of the Internet. There might be some that still don't use it today, but it has integrated itself into our lives and AI is coming along now. I'm going to make sure my job here is to make sure this is as simple as possible for you to do. When I was running my podcast when I first started I was a full time maths teacher, head of year, also in charge of Key Stage 3 maths, which is like lower secondary school and I did not have the time. I had so much passion, I loved it, I did not have the time.  

[00:16:14]: And sometimes you have to do a cost benefit analysis and there was some level of outsourcing at certain times, but the majority of stuff was how can I do this quickly? And I fully run it on my own now. Have done for over over a year and a half, completely like no social media, even being managed by me. But we are going to look at how to work smarter, not harder. And by smarter I mean cleverer. Because I am known as the clever content creator. This is the part that I am and focus on the most because we want to squeeze all the leverage we can out of this podcast and we don't want to use any more tech than you just need to. So that brings us on to our final piece there of the clever creation element of the powerful podcast method. So it all comes together to make a powerful podcast.  

[00:17:03]: So I'm just going to talk you through the clever creation set up and kind of blend it with some progressive production for you here. So for level one, when you're starting a podcast, you are going to plan an episode, record it, upload it to your host, which I've suggested be Buzzsprout, title it, give it a description and publish it for the future. That is level one and it's probably audio only. You're using your phone and you're using Buzzsprout free to begin with. Believe it's now 12 per month for the basic plan. After you get into the routine of that and that should take five to maximum 10 episodes. Really no more than that because that's two and a half months. Don't forget you're then going to shift to a slightly different approach and get cleverer with your content.  

[00:17:45]: You're going to plan two episodes at a time and you're going to record two episodes at the time, changing your outfit in the middle so it doesn't look like the same episode on a different day to that or it can be you know, do that in the morning. In the afternoon, you're going to edit both episodes at the same time, you know, one after the other. You're going to edit the audio and the video too, upload them then both to the podcast host, buzzsprout, title them both, publish them both for a future date, schedule one for next week, one for the week after. You're going to upload the video to YouTube and then you're going to create snippets out of those videos using a little AI tool that I like to call, I don't like to call. It is called Opus. And for that you're then going to use your phone, a separate microphone. The phone is for video, a microphone such as the Blue Yeti plugged into Reaper, because this gives you a second backup in case anything goes wrong. And you're going to use some video software that you've got.  

[00:18:38]: It's Imovie for Mac or Cap Cut. If you're dealing with a different operating system, you're going to use buzzsprout still with their free to begin with trial, then start paying for the lowest option. We're Talking about like 20 minute episodes here, by the way. We're not talking about interviews, we're only doing solo episodes and it's not long. You can see the why. This is way too much info. I'm trying to get it all in for you here. And you're going to use their Magic Mastery option.  

[00:19:02]: To you, it's probably not going to make much difference in terms of listening if you don't want to listen back to yourself. To a listener who is listening to your podcast, Magic Mastery just levels out some of the vocal. So it's not completely. If you're going forwards and backwards close to the mic, it will just even it out a bit. So. So it's for the enjoyment and quality of the other person and that's what makes this all possible. You've got to be able to stand out with your content. It's got to be good enough to begin with in the first place.

[00:19:28]: And we've got to have you making sure you're not just being extreme for the sake of being extreme or different for the sake of being different, but standing in your truth and being bold about what you do to be that VIP in making sure you stand out online, you then have got to be able to produce your podcast in a progressive way that doesn't freak you out entirely to begin with, but build your confidence over time. And lastly, we need to then have clever strategies for Getting seen across the board. And I've shown you level one of recording your podcast episode and kind of level two where you're leveraging the video into snippets. There's lots more that can be done if you want. And as I say, it moved from 18 downloads in the first week, 119 downloads in the first month, to 7,000 in the first six months, 24,000 in the first year, up to 89,000 in the second year. Just tippling into the hundred thousand downloads just after those two years there. That is what's possible with this podcast. And it's not just the downloads.  

[00:20:33]: It was the DMs that came in from single women were telling me it had helped, that they didn't feel lonely anymore. And some of them have even found love through the courses that they were able to do the podcast. Podcast that DMS with people saying, I want to start the course, I want to work with you, how can I do it? That's the kind of energy we want. But it isn't just the leads that come in either. It's the opportunities that come your way. I was getting invites to go on the radio to speak on panels because people could see what I was talking about. They were interested in what I had to say, say I was putting my thoughts out there online. I didn't have to do the outreach on that.  

[00:21:07]: What I was saying was drawing people in. And that's what we want for your podcast to put it together. So if this is something that you want to get on with and do and actually want to know the exact steps to do to get your podcast started, I've got a mini course that is called just that. Get your podcast started. Is the version that you can get hold of here worth £57? People have paid that money, so just give the QR code a scan, pop your details in and you will be able to grab that for absolutely nothing. And that way you can get your podcast started. Whatever idea you've got, you are able to turn it into something that gets you seen, saves you time online and starts drawing people your way, growing your authority and bringing you leads without having having to be glued to your phone all of the time. I hope you've enjoyed that.  

[00:22:01]: A very quick whistle stop tour. You can head and find me on Instagram or LinkedIn if you want to get in touch in any other way. Otherwise, enjoy having a look at the get your podcast started course. It will take you through it in tiny, tiny steps and you could have your podcast out there as soon as a weekend if you wanted to have fun with it. Get your podcast out there and start changing the way the world thinks one podcast at a time. See you later.