The People, Process, & Progress Podcast - Follow These 5 Tips to Launch a Successful Podcast | PPP #40

Episode Date: July 17, 2020

I provide a guide on how to start a podcast using the 'Foundational Five' talked about on this show.Determine your Leader's Intent as the show hostEstablish S.M.A.R.T. Objectives for your show and episodesDetermine how your show will be OrganizedResearch and invest in your ResourcesBe comfortable with the Communication methodologies needed to podcast

Please silence your cell phones, hold our sidebar conversations to a minimum, and we will get into this episode of the People Process Progress Podcast in 3, 2, 1. Today we are on episode 40, the foundational five for starting a podcast. Now, you may have noticed that it used to be the foundational four for quite some time, and those four things are still there. After episode 39, where I focused on Ellen Coleman's four crisis principles, and that one where leadership really inspires, or officially what they called it in the episode from the Masters of Scale was, to instill pride in the mission was the fourth of her crisis principles. I thought these four, for me, these objectives, organization, resources, and communication are huge, but you do still need to have some pride. And I thought, you know, I've also talked about Simon

Siddick's why. And so for me, a fifth thing that I would latch on to the foundation of four is to first, particularly for podcasting, but really if it's a project, usually it's a business case or the problem you're trying to solve and incident management. It's the issues that turn into objectives. So for me, I'm going to tack this on as to determine your mission or the why, right? And then get into the rest of the four. Then from there, we'll make objectives. Then from there, we'll create an org.

Then from there, we'll get resources. Then from there, we will communicate or look at all the strategies of communication. So that's what I'm going to do today. So I'm going to talk about my experience. I've been podcasting since September 2018 and have combined about 13,000 downloads. So that's pretty awesome. Just from a numbers nerd kind of thing. And it feels good to put my voice, others' voice out there. Thank you again to all my guests.

And I'm by no means a heavy hitter in the podcast space, but I'm a mid-40s guy that decided to podcast and I'm sure there's other folks, whatever age you are out there, that are like, hmm, I've got a lot of time, I'm home, there's a lot of issues to talk about these days, I wanna start a podcast, so I'm gonna give you what's worked for me

from all the Google searches, from using software and some well and some not well, to try and help you all, like we do with the show, let you know a little bit about me and my podcast experience, what's the processes I went through, what are the things I use, and then what progress can you all make, because it's such a great space, and it's just wide open for everybody. So let's jump into this. Getting into that fifth thing that we've latched onto the foundational four, my mission, my why. So for me, my initial mission was I was an incident command system instructor, taught incident management classes, transitioning, going into project management soon. And I wanted

to help trainees or even instructors that were in that space to avoid some of the pitfalls that I hit either as a student or instructor and kind of translate that book knowledge to practical real-world applications. So that was kind of my mission for knowledge to practical real-world applications. So that was kind of my mission for wanting to start it. My why, which is a little more emotional, it's a little more, you know, it's got a little more behind it, right? As Simon Sinek explains, it's not just how are you going to do something or what it is, but really why are we going to be passionate about this?

And for me, that deeper level of the why was I wanted to continue to help educate public safety, public health professionals on the pitfalls of continuing to do by the book stuff that that combined with lack of collaboration with folks from different ranks, different patches, different whatever, will get people killed. And in short, to help save lives. And that's no small thing. And have I saved a life from podcasts? I don't know. I know I've been involved in great contingency planning efforts or overall efforts that has made a huge difference when really bad stuff has happened. But that was my why, right? And so that drove me. And even now, kind of changing from the between the slides that was very class education kind of focused to

looking at people, whether it's interviews or me talking or evaluating different things, some historical stuff, it's still to help us all look at what is the process that worked for me or didn't work for me, and then how do I make progress with that? So that's me, and I think if you're going to start a podcast, you need to really think about that, right? Because you've heard, like I have, maybe you think that of this one, hopefully not, some folks that just drew it on, but they don't really provide you anything when you walk away from the podcast, either emotionally or, or practically that you can apply. So really think about even if it's just a funny show, what am I going to come away with, you know, from your, from your podcast.

So some other things to think about for this wine mission is, you know, why do you want to talk to other people, right? Are you really interested in their stories, thinking of like guests and stuff? Will their stories provide value for other people? I have found every, you know, every guest I've had certainly picked up a ton of stuff. Why do you want to talk about your own given topic? I mentioned mine. Is it a passion for you? Is it a hobby? Is there nothing better to do? Did something happen that triggered you to want to put your voice out into the world? And again, it is global, right? Over 40 something countries for me with the show and other podcasts are well beyond that, but it's a global medium and it's great. Why should people listen and talk to you about a given topic, right? Are you the subject matter expert in a given area or have experience

in a given area that helps, right? And also when you start, it's easier. If you stick with the topic that you're familiar with, it's going to be easier to keep down that road and then maybe expand and veer off a little bit from that. Are you entertaining, right? There's shows where someone may or may not be a subject matter expert in a given thing, but they have experts on. I mean, the big, huge kind of standard as far as a podcast getting big is Joe Rogan, right? So he's certainly a mixed martial arts expert, health and nutrition, all that kind of stuff, and other things. But he's not a biochemist. He's not an astrophysicist. He's not, you know, a government person, but he has those people on his show. So whether you're that person, or you're going to have them on there, you're entertaining enough, or you can facilitate

conversation enough, think about how you might want to do that. The last practical things I would say to consider as part of your mission or why thoughts is why do you want to take extra time out of your day to put together notes? I work a regular job and I do this on the side, right? Because of that passion I mentioned, because of that why, because of the mission and now it's expanded to project management

and just wanting to talk to more people and of course grow the show and get the message out. But it takes work, right? Prep, putting bullet points together, looking at topics that are relevant, that are either catchy or that you care about or a combination of both. You're probably not going to make money, right? I've been fortunate that some of my guests have given me swag, as they say, which is cool. To monetize a podcast, and this will come out in some of the resources I mentioned, you have to have tons of listeners per episode, not just total. 13,000 is nothing to scoff at.

Some of the monetization numbers I've heard is that's what you have to have per episode. So listen. Again, I'll get into that and the resources and things that I use and that you all can use to learn more. Um, and you're not going to get tons of listeners right away, right? You're not going to jump right into it. Uh, some folks do right. Whatever that magical combination is between the hosts, how they wrote it, how they started. Of course, if you're famous and you start one, you're going to have tons of listeners. If you're not like I'm not, then you're not going to have a lot of listeners. So you have to be okay with that and keep driving and keep pushing. My rebrand this year, my relaunch, my new image, my putting more into it,

I already have over a thousand more listeners. And again, thank you all very much. Just in not even six months, then I did it over a year in my other one, right? So it's quality, not quantity. But be prepared to put in the quantity too. So consider the time. So figure out your why, your deep meaning why, your mission for the podcast. You know, why do you want to talk to folks? Why do folks want to listen to you?

And then again, are you willing to put the time in? And is your family willing to, right? I'm married and have three kids. So my family's no stranger to me saying, hey, I have an interview or I'm going to record at this time. Please don't jump around. I have paused and edited either me saying, Hey, be quiet or that, you know, especially now that we're all working from home in your after work time or your free time, you know, your kids, if they're home or your spouse that's home, we're just trying to live their lives in your house because we're restricted, right?

So that's something to consider as well. Just a practical thing from your mission and why, if you still want to get past that. If you do, then we need to get into this core, this heavy part of these foundational five. So this first of what was the four, right, is objectives, right? You have to have objectives both for your show and maybe even for your episode. So like my objective for this episode is to provide a practical walkthrough to either new or aspiring podcasters to be able to use objectives, organization, resources, and communication to establish a successful show, right? I just made that up as we're talking, but that's kind of that whole smart objective practice. So for me, the first thing for an objective is take time to figure out what you want to talk about and put together objectives for the show.

So I mentioned that, right? So my first objectives, I had an outline for the first 20 shows. I was like, I'm going to do this and talk about that. For me, I was going class-based. So I would look at the learning objectives for incident command system classes and then go, okay, both for the class, but then in reality, what does this mean? So it was a pretty easy kind of written out for me thing. If you have a topic like that, do it.

If you can write about a topic, do it. But just to have an idea, right? It helps to write it down. It helps to get your thoughts together. I stuck out of that 20-ish, probably the six or seven closely, and then thought, let me try this interview thing. My first interview was like on a cell phone, because I wasn't good at setting up software and all that, like new folks are. But that's something to think about is, you know, what are

the objectives for the show? Are you going to stick with those? What are you gonna use for outlines? You know, what's the natural progression for the show? Where's it going to go? Will it change week to week? So will your objectives change and all that? So for me, for the show, though, for this show, People Process Progress, my overarching objective is to provide the listener with insight from my 25 plus years of military, public and private sector experience and share the stories of people whose process and lessons learned can help us all make progress. Right. So that also practically fits where my podcast shows up on itunes on everywhere else on my website all that so think about kind of your elevator pitch can be your objective right an objective is short it's specific it's measurable it's real it's uh achievable it's

realistic and it's time-based right so make your objective for your show the same way it should be um you know i don't know that you can figure out how to stop time with your podcast. So that's not a realistic objective unless the whole podcast is about the theory of stopping time. Again, there's like a million technically podcasts and you'll find this out if you listen to other podcast resources. They're not all active though, but there's probably a podcast about something that doesn't seem realistic for me. I think if you're putting together a show before you even launch, before you even record an episode, you need to get a strong objective for what are we working towards. So every episode I work toward is working toward

that objective I just mentioned. What is yours? Figure it out. Think about it. Some other examples, to bring the listener on a journey through something, Or to expand the listener's knowledge of something, a given topic. To provide short, number of time, bullet points, summaries of a given topic, right? So some folks do that. There's some very successful podcasts that are about movies. They're movie reviews.

What do I think about this? Noir Histoire, Black History 1. Very short episodes, history summaries. You have super long shows like Jocko Podcast, Joe Rogan Experience, Hardcore History, super long episodes, but provide tons of information. They're very well written. So again, first thing, get the objective for your podcast, both for the show overall, and then think about each episode. What's the objective of this episode? Next thing in the foundation of four, if you all recall, or five now, I guess,

organization. How are you going to set your show up? Are you going to do it alone? Is it a solo show? Um, are you going to have an outline of what you're going to talk about each time? I highly recommend that. Are you going to pull together, you know, if it's you giving your two cents, like I've done, like honestly, some of the most popular shows or episodes I've done is, is me giving my two cents based on a combination of different thoughts I had plus referencing somebody else.

Uh, and I sticky noted it. And then when I went to record, one, I had them stuck over my car and my phone, hands-free, of course, recording that, or at home. So put all those resources together. If you're doing that by yourself, you have all those prep materials. Are you going to have a co-host? If you do, is there someone that you want to go through this creating a podcast journey with, right? Whether it's a friend you already have, a family member, someone you kind of know,

you've batted the idea around. But just like a project meeting with new people getting together or new ventures, playing sports, whatever analogy you want to think about, there's going to be some working stuff out, right? Who wants to talk about what? How do we want to talk about this? How do we gel together? Do you already gel together in good conversation every day, let alone when you're sitting two microphones or headsets recording, right? And you kind of get in a little different headspace when the record light goes on. It's kind of a different setup. It's, it's whacking. Are you from the same field? So are you in the same business? Do you have the same knowledge or similar knowledge? So you're going to bounce stuff and go back and forth off each other.

Or are you opposites, right? Do you have similar opinions on some things, but you're opposites on the other? A great example of that is Rising with the Hills Crystal Ball and Sager and Jetty. One's a Republican, one's a Democrat. They give pretty objective news, right? It's both a YouTube show and they have a podcast. They were just on Joe Reagan as well. But a good example, right, of opposites, but working together and putting a good product out there. So just consider, are you going to have a co-host?

Guests, how will you find them? I'll get into this for resources, but the best thing, and I got this from Ryan Mickler from Order of Man, from his great posts and guidance, is just ask, right? Reach out to somebody. That's how I was fortunate to be on the Behind the Shield podcast, to be on People with a Passion, to be on Podcast Insider with Todd Cochran from Blueberry. As folks said, hey, we want guests on the show. I said, you know what? I want to be a guest on the show. And then you establish that relationship. You have the initial call and some of the things that I'll talk about later for you as a host, what you should do or what I've found and learned from others is very helpful. So just ask, right? Ask your close circle. The first guest I ever had

was a good friend of mine, 20 plus year law enforcement officer. I said, Hey, do you want to talk about why cops don't adopt the incident command system or why they didn't at the time as much? And he was like, Yeah, I'm all about it because it's going to help. Right. So, you know, ask your friends. And then once you kind of build up or even right away, join, there's Reddit groups on podcasting, Facebook groups all over the place, Quora, you know, where you can ask questions or answer questions and ask for guests who wants to be on a podcast about blah, blah, blah. So there's a lot of good ways to get folks on there. And we'll get into that and the resources here in a second. So for your organization piece, for setting up an org that's going to work for you for your podcast, figure out, is it just you?

Is it you and a co-host? Is it you and some guests? Or what do you want to do with that? Because that'll help to drive your objectives and build off the rest of the stuff that we'll get into in resources here. So the first resource I recommend if you want to start a podcast is first you have to learn about podcasts. This podcast is a good primer. I am certainly not a pro with tons of industry expertise or experience, but I've been through it. So if you haven't started yet, this should be helpful. This should be a primer to then go check other things out. And here are some things I suggest. So for the fourth of these foundational five things, right? So we figured out what's our mission or why, what objectives do we

have? What's our organization for the show? Now we need resources. And the first resource I suggest is figuring out how to podcast. So there's podcasts about podcasts, go figure. And the three best that I recommend are School of Podcasting, Podcasters Roundtable, and the Audacity to Podcast. And so the School of Podcasting is all about that, right? Helping folks podcast in all the different topics you can think of, stuff I'm going to cover here plus more. Podcasters Roundtable includes the hosts of School of Podcasting and the Audacity to Podcast. And School of Podcasting is hosted by Dave Jackson, the Audacity to Podcast hosted by Daniel J. Lewis, and then Podcasters Roundtable hosted by Ray Ortega. So three very, very knowledgeable folks in the field,

anything from do you look at numbers or not, to what microphone do you use, and on and on. And each of them offer services. so check them out again school podcasting podcasters roundtable audacity podcasts so that's a way to listen to podcasts about podcasts the other very straightforward way is youtube and google there is as you all know about any topic so much out there and for podcasting there's just as much and they cover the whole gamut of things from hardware, software, music, hosting, all that kind of stuff. So go to Google, some people have made excellent short videos on how to set up a podcast. Here's five steps, go figure, or however many steps right

that they suggest. So go check that out. Google YouTube, listen to podcasts about podcasts, you really need that as your first resource. So then once you said, Yep, I'm going to do it, you need some hardware. You need a microphone, you need some software, you need a computer. So for me, I use a USB microphone. It's the Blue Snowball Black Ice. It's got a foam cover on it and a KO professional pop filter I just got yesterday because I was hitting some hard Ps on the mic and it's plugged into my MacBook Air that I'm recording through Audacity, which is the software. So as you'll hear on some of the shows that I just suggested, they don't really like this mic or some folks don't. For me, I think it sounds pretty good. You all let me know. It depends on whether I put my mouth way too close to it or I'm too loud. So that's another thing you'll learn as a podcaster on where to move the mic or not move it while you're doing things and so many different things.

So for me, for what I spent, just to give you all an idea, $50 to $60 for my microphone, $12 for the foam ball cover to go over it that I first had, and then the pop filter was another $16. I also did get one of those old school like 1980s lamp arm holders with the springs on it. You can move around. I forget how much that is, but you can Google it, microphone holder. There's a bunch of different kinds there. Again, Amazon is your friend. I think I got my mic actually at a Target, but you can get them anywhere. What I have heard to suggest a microphone that I don't use that really good things about it. And the person that was talking on it and sounded really good was an ATR 2100 USB microphone. I actually looked on Amazon today and they were sold out. So podcasters are scooping things up, but do your research, try one,

reach out to some other folks, but a USB microphone works pretty good. The other, the other thing that works good, it sounds a little different though, um, are like a good gaming headset or a good USB headset. So you get the headphones and the microphone on there. I would also make sure it's got a foam cover on the mouth part. So when you get into those pop pops or lip smacks or things that you're going to try not to do as much as you talk more and hear yourself, um, it'll filter this out for you. So hardware, again, that's me and you know, it'll filter this out for you. Hardware, again, that's me. A microphone, a USB one.

Some folks use a mixer. I don't know about that, so I'm not going to talk about it. That's more high level stuff. For me, I don't need that. I kind of game the system if I have someone sitting next to me by setting up kind of a virtual mixer in the MacBook and there's tutorials on how to use more than one USB mic, so give that a Google. I won't get into that and it will be like reading a technical manual and I don't want virtual mixer in the MacBook and there's tutorials on how to use more than one USB mic. So give that a Google. I won't get into that and it will be like reading a technical manual and I don't want

to do that here. So we got our hardware. Now we need software to record, edit, do all those kind of things. So for recording and editing, I use Audacity. It's $0, super easy to use, great support. I'm on a MacBook, so that also does have a GarageBand built in. I like Audacity's interface, usability, all that way better, but that's my preference. They're both, if you have a Mac, GarageBand comes with it. If you have a Mac or a PC, there's Audacity for each of those, but that's what I use. Again, super simple interface. There's plenty of other stuff besides Audacity and GarageBand. Those

are two again, that are free depending on the products that you own. So you can record and edit. So right now I'm talking directly into my microphone. That's then USB plugged into my MacBook. That's then recording in the Audacity software. I'm watching the waves, see if I get too loud, all that kind of stuff. So it's real time feedback there, which is great. But what do you do if you're going to talk to somebody remote, right? So the person is not sitting next to here, you're not talking on two mics right next to each other. For remote interviews, I use Skype. I used to just use Skype and then I did one, it didn't sound good. So I don't know if that was my microphone or the gaster or something. So then I watched Tim Ferriss, a YouTube video where he shared his podcast tips.

What's the software he uses, the mic he uses, references, things like that. So then I watched Tim Ferriss' YouTube video where he shared his podcast tips. What's the software he uses, the mic he uses, references, things like that. So then he mentioned this software called Ecamm Call Recorder. And so that seemed to make the Skype sound better and improve the recording quality. Now I have actually had an issue with Ecamm, and I've just used Skype for the last couple of recordings. And I think with upgrades and stuff, they sound Skype for the last couple of recordings and I think with upgrades and stuff they sound way better. So Skype alone is what I use. It's very easy to use. Some folks do or don't have it. So for me, if I'm getting ready to set up a guest to say,

hey, I'm on Skype, I do, you know, and then send them the information. Other sources for remote recording, and again, there's tons of them out there. So a lot of this gets into preference like any other hardware software discussion about any other computer thing I've heard about. And again, there's tons of them out there. So a lot of this gets into preference, like any other hardware software discussion about any other computer thing I've heard about. And again, you can look this up, go to like Facebook groups. There's a podcast movement community Facebook group. So check that out. There's like 40,000 people in there. So it's outstanding both to get information for exposure. There's also podcast groups on Reddit and so, or subreddits rather i guess you should call those right um so other things to record with that i've seen through those are zoom right zoom's huge now

given the crisis and telemedicine increase and a whole bunch of things i haven't used that to record a podcast i've used it business-wise to record sessions there and it works pretty good zencaster i've heard a lot about in squad casts as far as remote recording of guests. But again, I use Skype. It's very straightforward. It's a Microsoft product. So if you do it through Windows, it has that. They have a Mac version. That's what I use. Music. What do you want snazzy music kind of like I throw in here every now and then? Well, you can't just play your favorite song on here because it's copywritten, right? So, and again, when you Google on YouTube and you look up podcast music, you'll get tons of tutorials and tons of guidelines.

For me, I use a company called Pond5. It's music you can pay anywhere from, what, like $5 to $100 or something. So it's different produced music. There's also YouTube has a music library, a royalty-free or license-free library. But again, it's got to be that. So you can sit there and listen through clips. And again, as part of your planning process, think about, do I want a little intro ditty? Do I want to say some things, then do intro music and then come back to the episode?

There's so many different ways to do it. Or do you want to go music free like Jocko podcast and just start talking, you know, hit up, hit folks with something impactful right away or just get into it. Hey, we're at this episode. Here we go. Right. It's all preference. It's all what's going to work for you all. What you think, what would you want to listen to? I liked a little music ad. I've used it a full time when I've, when I did if for 2020 America, got some dramatic kind of patriotic sound and music and kind of mixing around. So I'm definitely not the music mixing expert, but again, Pond5 is what I use. It costs money. YouTube has some free library of sound, so consider that. The other huge thing, right, you have all this stuff and you're recording it.

So now where are you going to host these files that you've recorded these great episodes in or great interviews? So many places. Again, there's a million or over a million podcasts out there hosted on all these different platforms. I use Blueberry, which is B-L-U-B-R-R-Y, so it's not spelled totally like the actual blueberry fruit, but they're great. No sponsorship for me. I'm just giving you the scoop. Easy interface. You get statistics for an extra five bucks a month. You get advanced statistics so I can see what percentage of an episode do people listen to, not just how many

downloads each. And very quick responses. When I've had technical issues, either from my own fault or something that happened with the hosting, which isn't often at all, they respond same day, which is awesome. Some other very well-known hosts include Anchor, which is free. So is it easy? Yes. I've also heard, again, with some free things, not Audacity. It's been great. With Anchor, I used it, I think, twice, once or twice when I was messing around when I very first started in 2018 on my phone.

And I didn't really like it. That was my preference, though. But some folks use that. Again, it's free, and so you're going to get what you pay for as far as what they do or don't allow you to do with that. Other probably more well-known paid service is Audible, Buzzsprout, Podbean, and Libsyn. Libsyn's definitely a big one.

So, again, when you look at tutorials, you'll see some of these suggestions as far as hosting and find a host. Or if you just Google podcast host, just lists come up like crazy. So we have our mission, our why. We have our objectives for our whole podcast, plus each show we're working on. What kind of organization? I'm doing this by myself. I'm going to have some guests, a co-host, whatever we want to do.

Went over some of the resources, both hardware, software, learning, education, all that kind of stuff to be able to start and record and edit our files, our sound, our message, and have some more resources. But now we're going to hit that communication piece, right? That fifth, that's going to bring all these foundational five things together and that's communication. So how are we going to get our episodes out there? Your hosts and most of the big hosts, especially, again, I'll speak to Blueberry because that's what I have, but it includes an area to distribute, right? For Spotify, Apple's actually built into there. When you make an episode, you put your info for the Blueberry directory, then it's also the Apple directory. But within the same site in your dashboard for Blueberry, there's links that say get on Spotify, get on Deezer. Actually, I'm looking at it right now.

And they're similar with the other hosts. I only know because Dave Jackson from School of Podcasting mentioned, and he's a Libsyn person, that they do that also. For the other hosts I mentioned, I don't know because I've never had exposure to those. But you need to get that out. The other way to get your show on other platforms is an XML feed. So that's the link to your podcast's feed. So when you get into some of the lessons and you look at those videos and you get into your host, you'll see what that is. You'll get more information on that.

But basically what you have to do is go to these different sites and just paste that feed in there. Type the name of your show, what's it about. Basically the blurb you'd see on whatever platform you're listening to. And some of those platforms like iHeartRadio, Stitcher, TuneIn, IMDb now, right, which is usually an entertainment movie thing, they're listing podcasts. I have a couple episodes on there. It's not really made for that yet. It's a little clunky, honestly. But talking about exposure, IMDb is huge. So some automatically happen through your host, through your podcast host. Some you have to just paste your link and say, I want my show on this. And then it's very easy. It's very quick. Most of those companies

respond very, very soon. This show currently plays on Blueberry, which is the host. So that's right on either the Blueberry site or that's how it plays through. That's the link I play through if you go to the peopleprocessprogress.com website. I'll play there. iTunes, TuneIn, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Stitcher, Player.fm, PodChaser, IMDb, again, a small footprint there, and then PodParadise. I didn't even know about PodParadise. I Googled where my show was, and that's what showed up. The big ones I knew that were on there.

Some of these replicate across different hosts. So you've pushed these files out. You've put together great content. They're now on these platforms. So how are you going to advertise it? The obvious one is the social media, right? The Facebook, the Instagram, the Twitter, even LinkedIn. So a little different though.

So Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for your show, is it going to be your account? Are you going to make a separate account? Are you the brand? Is your show the brand? That's other things to think about. There's shows where the person, like Jocko Willen is a perfect example, Joe Rogan, or we use the show name, but it's still my name behind it. So I have a People Process Progress Facebook page. Similar for the.com is People Process Progress. I mean, my name, Kevin Pinnell, comma PMP is on there. And for Twitter, it's Pinnell KG. But then for Instagram, I actually

split those because I do exercise regularly and I share my workouts and stuff each day or family pictures and stuff on Instagram. So there's a ppp underscore pod is the show's Instagram page. So not linked to really my page anymore. And then I have a personal Facebook page. And the only thing I do there related to podcasts is I'll share my podcast page posts to my timeline, right? Just more exposure. But that's stuff to think about is how are you going to set up kind of your whole marketing plan, your whole exposure? The other thing to consider is are you going to make a website beyond the Facebook or the LinkedIn, right? And LinkedIn is a little bit different too too because LinkedIn is how you are professionally out in the world, a little more businessy.

And so I post, but you get great exposure, particularly if you have a niche in a certain industry and you share that with connections you have in that industry. So it's a good way to put it out there, and LinkedIn is a great way. For a website, I would definitely set up a website for your show. And again, there's tons of hosts. I didn't outline kind of this. I use WordPress. There are so many website hosts and hosts that have templates and they'll walk you through

creating it. And so you don't have to be a whiz or with a lot of the stuff I've talked about, if you really are into podcasting, you really know you want to do it, you have the, and you have the honestly time and funds, you can actually pay people, consultants and stuff like that to help you set up all this stuff. But if you set up a website, like I have peopleprocessprogress.com, I set it up myself, it's through WordPress. So I have some templates I've made for both planning, studying for the PMP, different things, links to interviews I've done, videos, stuff like that. And then also, you can listen to episodes through there and subscribe and all that.

So check out my website. Maybe give you some ideas. I appreciate your feedback. Is it easy to navigate it? It's not. I'm in the process now of updating the player for each. So a website or blog post is a good way to drive traffic too. And check out Neil Patel.

A good friend of mine mentioned that. He can help you see how good your website is with SEO. How are folks clicking on it? Are they finding it? Are they not finding it? Search engine optimization. So will you drive your episode post through your website out to the other places or not? There's all these different strategies.

So as you work through these strategies, as you meet more people, have more guests, you'll learn more. And I did. I learned a lot from Craig Rowe, who's the host of the People With a Passion podcast and YouTube show. So check that out. Again, Craig Rowe, People With a Passion. When I was coordinating, he and I were coordinating for me to be on his show. He's based out of Australia. To share links, he introduced me to this thing called Linktree. It's L-I-N-K-T-R dot E-E. And so it's a way where you take all your links to the different platforms. We've talked about iTunes, Spotify, iHeart, et cetera, to your LinkedIn, to your Facebook,

to your Instagram for the show. And you put them on this one website and then there's one link you can share instead of, I used to advertise every episode and every show, um, have to go my show on iTunes, find that, find the link Spotify, iart, on down the road, and then also put separately my LinkedIn link and all that kind of stuff. So this Linktree, super helpful. It's my signature line. Everywhere I post show-related stuff now. So now anyone can click on it, and they can go to that Linktree page, and the Linktree page shows all the platforms the show's on. Again, they can connect with me on LinkedIn.

They can email me. They can go to the website. Everything's there. So super helpful. So a great communication tool that's the last and one of the most important of this foundational five of things to do. Another thing is so you're sharing your links. You're getting your episodes out there. Now you want to get more guests.

So how are you going to book your guests with this communication? Create a form. So on WordPress, on the peopleprocessprogress.com, there's a share your story link. And it's a simple form built in the site that I want to know who the person is, right? What is the process you want to share with folks or what helped you or what didn't?

And how are you going to make someone make progress? How did you hear about us? Some really basic stuff. So that's a good way to start the conversation, to get people to say, hey. And the tough thing about that is like folks, whether it's an audience survey or asking folks to come fill out a form, you may not get a lot of hits. Um, so usually if I make a connection somewhere, whether it's Instagram or LinkedIn

or somewhere, then I'll say, Hey, can you just fill this out and give me some info? And then we'll go to the next step. And so the next step for me is once I do get someone that even, even if I didn't reach out to them, which a couple of my guests, which is great, reached out to me, I say, okay, cool. And this is another lesson learned from Todd Cochran, CEO of Blueberry. So each new person that I've interacted with, I've learned from and gotten these tools from. So thanks again, Todd Cochran, Blueberry CEO. Let's use Calendly, right? And the sequence would be, let's set up a 15 minute meeting just to meet each other, see each other on Skype or just have a call, whatever we need to do.

So we're not a cold calling at the same time we're trying to record a podcast interview, right? So the first one's a 15 minute meet and greet. So they can go to this Calendly self book. I set it up and say when my free time is so they can book time there. And then the second one I want them to do is the 60 minute for the interview, right? It's easy. It's interesting when you first start recording an hour show with a guest, it seems like, man, we're only 10 minutes in,

we're never going to go to an hour. And then you're already at an hour and you're trying to navigate and close it down because it's kind of a sweet spot. There's really, that's a whole other thing you'll find when you search what's the sweet spot of length. But for an interview, that seems to be a pretty good one, but it's easy to eat up an hour. So I book a 60 minute spot. So I use Calendly for that. And so if you have kind of that system in place where folks can say, hey, I want to be on and you go, cool, let's set up a short meet and greet. Awesome. Now let's go forward with this. Let's talk about in the meet and greet. What don't we want to talk about? What do you think is going to hold value?

You can just really get to know people a little bit better. And then the 60 minute, of course, is that's where we as podcasters, when we're doing the interview, have that obligation, the need. Let's make them feel welcome, comfortable. Let's help guide the conversation. Let's help navigate it so that it's the conversation. It's the type of stuff that people want to listen to, which hopefully you all continue to listen to this.

So I hope this foundational five, right, reveal, first show here with the five, find out your why, get your mission squared away. The second, make those objectives based on what the mission is you're trying to accomplish or what your why is you're trying to get out there. Determine what the organization is for your show, for both the overall podcast, for an individual show, think about those kind of things.

Put together resources. Consider all those resources I mentioned. How are you going to host the show? How are you going to get it to all the different platforms? How are you going to book guests? How are you going to schedule guests? And all those things. And I'll share these in the show notes.

But that's a 30 something minute. Hopefully this was very helpful. Me just pulling together some thoughts on what I think will be helpful. I had a conversation recently with somebody else that was interested in podcasting. And so if I would have had this kind of consolidated or a conversation, and again, if you reach out to me, peopleprocessprogress at gmail.com via email or go to the site and you can connect with me. My link tree that I mentioned is https colon forward slash forward slash l-i-n-k-t-r dot e-e forward slash peopleprocessprogress all together. Or again, just go to the peopleprocessprogress.com website and there's links all over the place. Thank you all so much. Stay safe, wash your hands. And of course, God's people.