Luis Congdon

All right. Welcome to how to create a podcast day three.

Today, I want to go and slow down, back up and keep focusing on the fundamentals of how to create a podcast. Because I know that a lot of people want to jump ahead to recording and creating the show. However, without understanding the fundamentals, I’m afraid we’ll get ahead of ourselves and next thing you know, you’re recording a show. You’re sending it to iTunes. You spent some money and time developing and recording. But you haven’t developed the wherewithal to create a show that helps you and does what you wanted to.

Often, I get asked how to create a podcast. If you remember on day one, I talked about understanding who you’re creating the show for. Have an idea of who the ideal listeners for, and have an idea of what the end goal of your show is. You’re not just creating a show because it sounds cool. But you’re creating a show because you understand where you want it to take you.

If you’re a coach and trying to appeal to people in the weight loss industry. Then, you want to create a show that appeals to people that will help you attract people. They are people who could become your clients, good allies for your new business, a support system for the growth of your business, and your coaching.

Luis Congdon

Very similarly, if you’re in some other industry, you want to consider what is your show going to do. And how you can create a show that will help do exactly what it is that you wanted to. There are a lot of people that are creating shows that are completely unrelated to their business and to what they want the show to do.

I want to give you an example of a company that I had the opportunity to work with, and they’re a clothing business. When we were talking, one of the things we noticed is they wanted to get more vendors. They wanted to get more people who could sell their products. This is in another country, and this clothing company is structured very much like an MLM.

MLMs are if you make a sale, then you get paid a percentage. And if you get other people to make sales for you, then you get a proportion of some of those sales. One of the things we noticed is what they were doing was they were creating content that made them appeal to people. Not in a way that was related to the kinds of people that would want to become sales people.

Luis Congdon

They were posting pictures of their clothing, but when you went to their website, you couldn’t buy the clothing off the site. When you went to the site, there’s no way for you to find out how to become a vendor and how to sell the clothing. But that’s what they wanted more. They wanted more vendors.

One of the things we talked to them is why don’t you start creating a podcast that tells stories about your vendors. About people who are selling your products and how it changed their lives. Maybe feature some people who have come in through your doors and become a vendor. Talk about how it has changed their lives and what has happened, and focus on this opportunity.

Learn how to create a podcast and do that through the podcast. You can also do that through your website, or through your social media. When people land on the website, if they can’t buy the clothes there, and you’re not trying to sell clothing through the website. Then shouldn’t your website highlight the opportunity that they could get from becoming a vendor? Similarly, I’ve learned in some other industry that this is something to consider.

Now, you don’t have to be so literal with this. Recently, I was reading an article about the company Slack. A Slack is like an online community where you can create a group of people where they can chat with each other. It can help you organize work projects. You can also have community conversations among particular groups of individuals that you can add into this an online forum.

Luis Congdon

Slack created a show that was about community. It wasn’t about Slack, the product. It was a show more around community, stories, and storytelling. But, through their show, at the very beginning, they would talk about the product slack.com and how at Slack people could create communities. They would talk about how to use their online forum to empower people to have community discussions and be more involved in the community. Then, the show would start. You can do something like that too.

Through that show, their highlighting something that is relevant to their product. But they’re not so literal where they’re trying to sell you their product.

Ideally, your podcast has a level of entertainment to it.

If you’re a car company, maybe you bring car aficionados onto your show. And people talk about how they suit up their cars, what it was like to work on this car. Or you have some entertaining show where people can call in and talk about car problems.

MPR has this great show where people call these two guys, and these two guys are hilarious. People call in these guys and talk to them about their car problems.

In order to learn how to create a podcast, first know your product. It isn’t directly branding the car company if you’re a car company who has a podcast. But by providing the show for people who are fans of cars and love cars. You are branding yourself and attracting your customers through a show that engages the types of customers and clients that you want.

Luis Congdon

You can get creative. When people talk to me, they ask me how to create a podcast. They also ask me a lot of questions like, “What’s the ideal amount of time?” “Should I have guests or not have guests?” “How should I structure my podcast?” “What do I need to do in order to learn how to create a podcast?”

One of the things I tell people is that unlike going to a traditional like television or radio show, or magazine where they have publication dates, and they fit you in those slots, this is your show. So you can get creative. That doesn’t mean that you get so creative that you are sporadic in how often you release an episode, and you’re not consistent.

Luis Congdon

There are few guidelines. I’m going to give you a couple of them.

1. You want to be consistent on when you release the show.

If you decide you’re releasing an episode every Monday at 7 A.M, make sure you release an episode every Monday at 7 A.M. If you choose you’re releasing two episodes every week, then that’s what you want to do. If you decide you want to do it by seasons, you can create seasons. At the end of a season, you let people know when the new season starts up. So that then, people can have the sense of accountability because people are routine-based. We’re creatures of habit.

Don’t feel constrained in how you have to do your podcast. But make sure whatever it is that you decide to do, be consistent.

Luis Congdon

Statistically speaking, on average, people listen to a podcast for about 20 minutes. So a good amount of time for a podcast episode is 20 minutes. You can go longer if you’d like and create excellent content, but if you can go around 15 or 20 minutes, that’s fantastic.

If you’re somebody who’s hosting the show by yourself. If you’re doing as I am right now where you’re teaching a lot. And it’s just you talking, you might decide that you do 5-7-minute episodes once a week or 5-7-minute episodes twice a week.

Luis Congdon

Whatever it is that you decide to do, choose to be consistent.

Now, if you decide that you’re going to be doing 20-minute episodes but one week, you do a 12-minute episode, don’t worry about that. People aren’t going to get too upset about that.

But people will get confused if the episodes are supposed to come out every Monday. Then all of a sudden, you drop off for two or three months. Your listeners will disappear, and there’s a high likelihood not many of them will return because they’re going to find another show.

Make sure that you stay consistent. If for some reason you’re not going to be consistent with something or the show is going to drop off for a while, let your audience know.

The next tip, we’re going to get into how to record. It’s simple, but it sounds complicated. The point here is when we get into the how-to’s and the nitty-gritty of podcasting because you listened to these episodes on the fundamentals, then you’ll be far ahead of the game, and you won’t make some of these mistakes that I’ve made.

Luis Congdon

2, Record 5 – 10 -15 episodes in advance before you release your show to the public.

By having a lot of shows in the bucket, ready to go, already done and ready for release. If you decide you’re going to do a show every Monday, and you’ve already done 15 episodes, that’s 15 weeks.

If you want to take a vacation with the kids, or you want to take a vacation with friends. Or you’ve got work, so you want to put the show off for a little bit, you’ve bought yourself some time. Then you can schedule and automate all the episodes to go out. You can do other things but the show is still going out. Your audience is still being engaged, and they have content to engage with. I’ll teach you more about how to create a podcast.

However, right now, I just wanted to open up your mind to the possibility that this show is your show and you can do it how you like to.

One suggestion I have is if you want to position yourself as an expert. Because you’re a coach, a therapist, or somebody who helps other people accomplish something. If you decide to do an interview-based show where you interview other people and bring on guests. You also maybe do one episode once a week along with your interview.

Luis Congdon

3. Once a week, you do an episode that is very short. It’s just you talking about some concept so that you can demonstrate your expertise. If you don’t want to do that, when you speak to your guest, talk to them as if you’re also an expert.

So if your guest tells you some valuable advice or information. Say “You know, that’s fantastic information, and that’s very similar to what I teach my clients.” Or, “You know, when I heard you say that, it made me think about some of the things that I’ve taught my clients and the results they’ve gotten. One of the things we teach them is X, Y, and Z. And it resonated with me when I heard that. Now, I’d like to ask you a follow-up question.” But, demonstrate your value.

Just know that your show is your show and you are the expert. You are the creative genius behind it.

This is one of the key fundamental pieces that a lot of my coaching clients forget. That this is their show and they can create it how they want, and that also by hosting a show, you can also demonstrate how you’re an expert or somebody who’s gotten results for other people.

Even when you’re interviewing other people and other experts, you are also an expert with that person. You are also someone who has value to add to the audience and feel free to add that value may be around how to create a podcast. You can do it through your questions. But you can also do it by bringing up things that you know and engaging your guest by sharing some information that you know as well.

Luis Congdon

This piece that we’ve talked about today is crucial for me.

#1. Being creative.

You are the creative author of your show, therefore know how to create a podcast in most significant way. You can demonstrate value, and you can decide a release schedule for your show that suits you.

We do five days a week on our podcast, but you don’t have to do that. You could do five days a week. You could do seven days a week. You could do one day a week. You could do every other week. You could do a couple of episodes every quarter. It’s really up to you.

Most of the time, more content equals more fandom.

So we do five days a week. One reason is that we want to give people from Monday through Friday contents so that as they’re driving to work, they can listen to something. They can be engaged during the workweek. Then on Saturdays and Sundays, we don’t release any episodes, but some other shows are seven days a week.

One of the things that I wanted to say here is that you don’t have to do that. We do that because we want to provide content for people five days a week during the workweek. We do it also because we know that the more content that you’re sharing with the world, the more people you’re attracting to you. It’s a general rule of thumb. But if you already have a big audience or you already have a list, maybe you don’t have to release content and information as often.

Luis Congdon

It’s really up to you what feels good, and I advise you to test it out. There are shows released only once a month that does fantastic. Those are shows with a lot of production value and a lot goes into it. There are shows released once a week that have incredible value. There are ones that are twice a week, three times a week, five times a week, seven days a week.

It’s up to you what you want to do. I want you to know that it’s really up to you but whatever you decide to do, be consistent with that.

With that being said, I want you to spend some time around learning how to create a podcast. And consider; what are some of the ways that I can create a show that would engage my ideal clients, my ideal audience? What’s the kind of show that I want to commit too?

I have been talking about how to create a podcast. Check in next week where we’re going to talk about some more of the fundamentals to get you started so that you can start recording your episodes and start getting going on this thing.