How to Start a Podcast | A 3 Step "Go/No-GO" Beginners Guide

If you are reading this, you have thought about OR might even be getting SERIOUS about starting a podcast. This "thinking" stage, is the perfect time to finally make the decision and stop wasting time,

This is a GO or NO-GO moment for you.

As the host of "The Data Binge" podcast, an extremely fulfilling creative/stretch/passion/anxiety/hugetimeconsumer project of mine that I started in December of 2018, I've had the pleasure of interviewing many guests across 38 episodes, 3669 unique IP address hits (listeners), over the last 2.5 years. (to date as a I write this article on 04/27/2020).

In that time, I've had a good amount of friends, co-workers, customers, and strangers reach out to get some answers on how to "start a podcast". I'll be clear, most of these conversations seem to be a waste of their time and a waste of mine, because the majority of the folks that reach out never actually start a podcast (this is not a surprise, and completely understandable, this is an arduous journey, and I appreciate people having ideas and striving to understand if those ideas are well founded).

All of this has inspired me to candidly communicate major steps you need to mentally navigate through the critical components that matter, so you can make a decision as fast as possible, and get started.

Step 1 | Should You Start a Podcast? 3 Discovery Themes to Ponder

There is a lot of "self development" type content on social media about finding your "mission", discovering your "WHY", developing a "philosophy" - which is all amazing, but if you are like me, you want to punch yourself in the face each time you come across content like this - where and how do you start, and what does thought leadership have to do with any of this?

There are (3) themes that I discovered that have helped me understand why a podcast would be the best thing for me to focus on, and without these, I wouldn't have had the fortitude to commit 6 hours x 38 episodes in 2.5+ years.

Theme 1: It has to align to what makes you (or can make you) money

Currently, as a Sr. Data & AI Specialist at Microsoft, it is my job to understand how organizations leverage the power of data to create innovation and disruption that empowers their employees and customers - imagine a technology advisor specifically focused around...yes...DATA.

I was hired into Microsoft from an MBA program (Hook 'em Horns!), with no former career in tech. It was blatantly obvious that I would struggle with learning the technology with enough depth and breadth to be of any value to customers - this was a huge pain point for me, and I spent a lot of time pondering what the hell I was going to do about it.

I'm naturally a relationship person, and indeed this is one of my biggest strengths/skills - so I began taking calls with the smartest and most knowledgeable colleagues to ask questions and get advice around particular technology oriented themes. It occurred to me that I could record these calls, and share them with others, because "there had to be others" that were as challenged as I was with tech and how we as humans integrated with it.

This is how The Data Binge Podcast was born, a library of discussions with business leaders and technologists focused on the human relationship with technology - most importantly,

The podcast directly aligns with what I do day to day at Microsoft, and being that I love what I do, it fulfills not only what I'm personally interested in, but it makes me a more valuable asset to my employer and customers.

These combinations are critical. Lastly, because of the value it brings to how I make money from day to day (and many opportunities for future), I can invest not only personal time, but ALSO time at work doing this as well.

Moral: align your efforts to how you do, can, or will make money - it will be the best decision you ever made.

Theme 2: Have enough mental material and interest to easily capture 50 + episodes

If you don't know who Gary Vaynerchuk is, I'm thrilled I have the chance to introduce him to you - doing a quick google search should help you understand who he is, word's simply can't frame up his character or breadth of expertise.

On Gary's podcast, The Gary Vee Audio Experience, he consistently talks to entrepreneurs and business leaders about thought leadership and content creation - one of my biggest takeaways from one of the episodes was his comment on how to approach a podcast idea/show/theme. He said something like

you should clearly choose something that you can instantly conjure 50 or more episodes to capture, with little mental strength or thought.

This is a brilliant way to understand whether you should start a podcast or not. CAN YOU, think of 50 episodes right now in real time, of where you would focus? If you can't do this, you haven't chosen the right idea or theme or 'WHY", whatever you want to call it, and you should go back to the drawing board.

You need that feeling of excitement that when you hear something or read something that scratches the surface of your interest, you immediately want to start jotting down ideas for potential episodes - whether it be 50 ways you can bake birthday cakes, or the difference between the 1960 vs 1970 fastback and coupe mustangs, it has to be a topic that resonates with you so much, that you can obsessively deploy ideas, thoughts, guests, and energy around it.

Theme 3: Know why the world need this additional content

This is perhaps the easiest theme and self diagnostic method to understanding if it's the right time or idea to commit to.

What are your favorite podcasts? Do you see patterns of why you think they are your favorite? Is it the quality of the audio (probably not, and hopefully your not caught up on equipment, more on that below)? Could it be that there was ONE KILLER episode that was the end all be all that instantly sold you to be an obsessive listener?

Most likely, it's a specific niche of content that specifically resonates with you, giving you some new value add that relaxes you on your long drives, helps you become more productive at work, entertains you while you sweep up leaves in the yard, or DRIVES you through that insane cardio session.

Whatever it is, it's something you can comfortably revisit time and time again to get the value from it that is very particular to who you are today, or who you are trying (or organically shifting) to become.

Based on projected podcast listener increases year over year, you aren't the only one that is becoming more fascinated with being captured by your favorite audio content.

At the end of the day, starting a podcast is brutally time consuming, and requires discipline, patience, and time - understanding the above themes and thinking them through, is absolutely the first pill you need to swallow and understand before committing to this journey.

If you like the statistics, you can find some good fresh data here

Step 2 | The Logistics | Equipment, Workflow, & Video

I've been waiting all article to get my hands dirty within this topic, it's finally my chance to bash everyone who begins a podcast discovery conversation with "what mic do you use?" - that's like asking your mentor, "what kind of car do you drive" - it has NOTHING to do with anything we care about here.

First and foremost, if you think equipment is the MOST important part about doing a podcast, you have been mislead - there are so many "gear-heads" arrogantly walking the earth, touting the strength of their mighty $200 + mic's and $500+ mixing boards, that it can really hard to cut through the fat and do something that is realistic and on budget.

Let me underscore this idea:

budg·et | /?b?j?t/ |: an estimate of income and expenditure for a set period of time.

In fact, I see the budget to quality ratio as a game, I compete against myself for how small I can get the ratio to be, and you should too! It'll keep things simple, it'll create less anxiety about actually starting to get some episodes finished, and the incremental quality of your audio doesn't really matter that much initially, in the grand scheme of things, especially if your content isn't your first priority.

*Disclaimer: Sure, you can't have terrible audio because no one will want to listen to your content, but, there's a fine line between audio that will get the job done, and audio that took thousands of dollars of sound engineering, equipment, post processing, and time - resources that can be spent on producing quality stuff.

Physical Equipment

Before going ANY further, let's let Tim Ferriss, one of the most popular podcast hosts to ever live, outline what HE uses to interview the likes of celebrities such as Tony Robbins and supermodel Karlie Kloss, and business tycoons like Disney's ex-CEO Bob Iger:

I watched this multiple times and copied his equipment cache almost to a T...including doubling up on almost all cables and components, getting a good bag to tote my equipment in (including rain resistant shielding), and making sure I ALWAYS carry-on when traveling - don't risk having your gear lost when you have a big interview slated.

You can find my personal "kit" including all items I use today, in the link below:

Workflow

Podcasting DOES have a pretty size-able barrier to entry for a number or reasons - customizing your workflow for an optimal quality outcome, welcomes an overflow of options. This in particular is why I really enjoy it - there are so many ways to inject creativity in how you produce your content.

I've include my personal workflow below to highlight a sampling of my own process.

You'll see that it's broken up into essentially (4) distinct workflow pillars:

1. Logistics & Admin: this describes the way you reach out to potential guests and frame up ideas for the interview/discussion including: methods of contact and RESEARCH (something you should not take lightly, in fact, this is what will separate you from a stellar interview from a mediocre).

Tools used: LinkedIn/Google for research, and social messaging and email for outreach

2. Content Creation: this is actually the capture of the content. There are now (3) ways that I do this today: 1) In person via conference or some pre-scheduled meeting 2) Virtual conference via your calling method of choice (I personally use Zoom, it uploads a copy of the audio and video directly to my OneDrive cloud), and my newest addition, 3) LIVE - I have now begun hosting LinkedIn LIVE discussions that I then extract the MP3 audio from and deploy across podcast channels post broadcast.

Tools used: Zoom for video conferencing, Socialive for LIVE capture and deployment

3. Editing: I have a weird relationship with editing - from one angle, its the most repetitive and boring part about the entire workflow that I battle against each episode with thoughts of just outsourcing this to a sound engineer or a podcast editing pro. From the other angle, it helps me really take a second hard listen to the discussion, which allows me to, in real time, make notes about ways I can improve in the future, and most importantly, it gives me another opportunity to learn from the guest - this latter idea is why I still do the editing myself, and try to enjoy it.

Tools used: Apple Final Cut Pro X, Audacity, Auphonic

4. Deployment: in this pillar you are simply deploying your content out into the world for others to consume it. I chose to use SquareSpace just because its very easy, and I also host my personal website here, but there are other great new platforms emerging like Podbean and Libsyn. These platforms come with out of the box listening statistics, while in the beginning will be pretty useless, but once you have some good data metrics for 20+ episodes, you'll be able to be more data driven around around your content strategy.

Tools used: SquareSpace for hosting and website, Blubrry Podcast Analytics for measuring impact and listening statistics

The Optional but Oh So Very Important: Video

There's really no better way to tell stories than doing so via video, and based on current statistics for video creation, the world is moving toward more and more video creation (especially during the COVID related pandemic era). Here are some interesting stats about why there's a segment in this write up about this:

1. Cisco projects that global internet traffic from videos will make up 82% of all consumer internet traffic by 2021.
2. Using the word “video” in an email subject line boosts open rates by 19% and clickthrough rates by 65%.
3.  85% of videos on Facebook are watched without sound.
4. 32% of marketers say visual images are the most important form of content for their business, with blogging in second (27%).
5. Nearly 75% of business executives say they watch online videos every week.

Source: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/visual-content-marketing-strategy

Additionally, LIVE video is a new concept that is picking up on many social media channels, and based on some statistics shared by eMarketer as late as January 2020, LIVE video consumption has increased historically and will continue to do so in the foreseeable future.

Here's a sample LIVE video that a colleague of mine, Ali Mazaheri, did via a LIVE program we are hosting on LinkedIn:

Imagine how simply it is to transform this LIVE experience into an audio experience...in fact, you don't have to imagine, you can find episodes I've transformed from LinkedIn LIVE on my podcast:

37 | Simply Tech LIVE #5 | The Crisis Management App for Emergency Response - Organizational Communication for Preventative Measures and Minimal Exposure

Simply put, the incremental effort taken to add a video component to your podcast, and/or to use that video to deploy against additional channels via micro clips, is something far too valuable to pass up. You can do this as easily as "recording" the video straight from your virtual conferencing software and then editing that, or, physically filming the in person session, which is always fun and a great way to change the way you create the experience.

Step 3 | Guest Interviews and the Future of Your Podcast

If you've made it this far in a thorough read through this article - that tells me you are getting ready to press the ignition button in a BIG WAY.

If you've gotten here via skimming, this all probably looks like far too much work, and this is a great sign that you are wasting your time and should probably start with posting video on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Instagram - this is a great way to try your appetite out on a new content generating endeavor and see how you feel about it.

Guest Interviews

Just some quick tidbits from what I've learned about interviewing guests:

• Reaching out: When reaching out, be very descriptive of your ask and the potential value you will bring to your audience, while, prescriptively enumerating exactly why this would be a good fit and value add to your guest. I typically write up a very concise initial note, with a follow up with data driven details (including downloads, RSS hits, or other data metrics for a sense of volume).

*On getting rejected: don't take it personally if people do not respond to you, don't have the bandwidth, or are simply not interested in being a guest on your podcast - if you are very strategic and organized with your guest approach and episode strategy, and if you are reaching out to guests that can actually add value and vice versa, then a decline to interview is really a good thing because it probably isn't a good fit.

• Listening: One of my favorite lessons that I took away from Tim Ferriss as he has shared his podcast interviewing tips, is to just do less talking, more listening, and really put effort into this time being all about the guest - your job is to help extract their voice and story, not impale it. When asking big tough questions and the response seems like it's taking some time, don't interrupt or rephrase your question, instead

Let the silence do the work

• Questions: I tend to over prepare in my research before doing a podcast interview with a guest, or even if its a solo session with just me on the channel. What I really try to do, is to come with some very well thought out questions (on topics that you have qualified in your initial discovery call with the guest) and also dynamically respond to the stories that are being introduced organically. I use my questions as a guide, but try to be very reactive to how the discussion is going, while actively listening and capturing things that will allow the conversation to be a real one. Don't let your questions handicap the story - this is harder than it seems.
• Improvement: Another secret sauce element, after the interview is complete, I ask the guest to give constructive criticism on the entire experience: how it can improve, what they liked and didn't like, etc. Most people find it confrontational to give you negative marks on the fly, but this is a really great opportunity to learn how to get better at interviewing.

I recently had a guest tell me that I should be more organized around my compound questions, and should trace back to each component question so help the guest structure a complete response

Great advice, and this type of direct feedback will surely help accelerate the quality of your podcast.

I capture all of my ideas, graphs, data, and question topics in a OneNote before the discussion if it's virtual, and I shorthand items of specific interest in a journal, so that I don't have to rely on a screen during the interview (sample clip below).

In person, I prep everything via shorthand in a journal, you can find more about this type of note taking and interviewing specifically in the Tim Ferriss video sources above.

Short hand example given here below.

The Future of Your Podcast

Sometimes the creative piece of your mind in the peak moment takes advantage of the reality of your life situation, which can lead to over committing on endeavors that you can't fulfill to your utmost potential - this can really take a toll on your self esteem, as well as dilute the focus on projects/career/personal obligations that are ultimately priorities for how you pursue your life values (I didn't mean to go TONY ROBBINS here, but stick with it and do what's best for you!)

Podcast fatigue or "podfading" is a real term, and many professional and hobbyist podcast hosts talk about the infamous 7- 20 episode fatigue/fade - it's definitely real. But, if you really set yourself up around the components of this write-up, you'll be fully prepared to take this on as a long term augmentation for the positive impact you want to leverage upon the world.

Analytics

Running a data driven content strategy is critical to maintaining focus, and will allow you to dynamically react to statistics that showcase popular content that could impact the direction of the content your audience wants to hear

*Snip taken from my Blubrry account, the "platform" view given from a custom input date range.

Podcast analytics can tell you things about your content that can be optimized, shaped or tuned such as episode posting logistics (volume and posting times), social marketing tactics, popular topics and guests, seasonality in listening, episode length, and even audience personas and reach. Third party podcast analytics platforms like Blubrry, can provide this data at a low cost, and can really help decide how to direct your future episodes holistically.

Community

Additionally, the entire concept of creating a podcast and sharing it with others, is to develop and help a community. You can't do this on your own, you need peers, friends, and connections that will help you get the courage to move faster and the knowledge to produce better and better content. Engaging others that have podcasts is the most critical component to this co-learning/connecting. Attending a podcast specific conference or even messaging hosts or people in your network that host a podcasts are just examples, but building this community really is a fundamental component in having fun, staying true to your personal story, and creating amazing content for a growing and engaging audience.

Check out Podcast Movement, if you'd like to learn more about co-learning, collaborating, and connecting with other like minded podcast creators.

Podcasting has been one of the most fulfilling projects I have ever personally embarked on, and it continues to be my favorite creative pastime - chock full of its challenges, growth moments, and yes...fatigue.

Not only have I learned a tremendous amount from my guests and listeners, but I have also had countless subscribers reach out to tell me how much they've learned from and enjoyed my library of discussions - which, has been unquestionably satisfying, that I have contributed to someone else's learning, enjoyment, and development.

If you enjoyed this summary of my experiences, and you have further questions, please feel free to reach out, say hi, subscribe to The Data Binge Podcast, and let's help each other grow and accelerate some impact in the lives of others.

Email: [email protected]

Instagram: @drussnetwork