I Launched a Podcast One Year Ago… Here’s Everything I Did WRONG

What does a year of podcasting get you? Maybe you have surpassed that so you know what your answer is, but you could also be newer and haven’t even been podcasting for a year. Or even if you have, you’re curious, are you on the right track? Should you have been expecting more or less? And you know, one of the keys to success in podcasting is simply consistency.

over time. And the stats show that by far, most people just do not stick with it long enough to get results. It’s only something like 7 percent actually stay podcasting long enough to get results and they actually achieve it. And of course, this applies in life far beyond podcasting, right? Seth Godin refers to this concept as the dip.

Uh, he’s actually got a book by that name, which is basically where it’s people quit something because progress seems slow or non existent. And of course the ones who quit never actually see results. It’s impossible because they stopped, but the ones who pushed through that period, they can get the results.

And when you’re in podcasting, you need to understand what it is that you’re undertaking and be prepared to stay with it and have that commitment upfront. Otherwise it’s a complete waste of time. But you want to have that certainty in knowing that I need To stay with this, this long. I know how long that’s going to be.

I know what it’s going to take. I’m going to do the right things. And when you do that, it’s hard to fail, right? we’ve been podcasting now for an entire year. And so I wanted to reflect and share some lessons with you and our progress so you can understand what is realistic to expect. In your own situation, and hopefully it’ll provide some encouragement and motivation for you as well.

This is profits through podcasting, where we help health focus, entrepreneurs generate leads and revenue for their businesses through podcasting. I’m your host, Joel Oliver.

So a brief history of our podcast for all these years, we had been helping podcasters for the better part of a decade now, but we didn’t have our own podcast. And as we went through some changes, Uh, rebrand and changing our goals we were looking for a way to market the company and we had also started doing a bit of education around podcast growth.

Instead of just being an editing company, we’re putting out more content or that was the goal and had a little more focus on helping people understand how to grow their podcasts and how to use it to generate leads and revenue. So it just happened to make sense. At that time. Well, what’s a great way to market a business?

How about podcasting? And people had asked over the years, why don’t we have a podcast? I think it’s obviously a great tool, but especially for a company like ours. People get curious. Why aren’t you creating a podcast then if you’re able to do it? So with all that said, we launched a podcast about a year ago.

And with that came a host of other things like ramping up on social media, connecting with guests, the rebrand that I mentioned, we’ve been doing some blog posts now as well. We are going to get an email list up and running. We’ve been working on some things with that. So a lot came as a result of the podcast, or at least in connection with it all at the same time over the last year.

So we started out. I obviously was aware of the commitment required. That was no problem. I knew we were going to stay committed. But I did decide to start small and ramp up. I wanted to make sure everything was going okay, that we could sustainably get guests for the show and content.

You know, when you’re starting something new. That is a bit of a perhaps sticking point that you’re nervous about. So I didn’t want to bite off more than we could chew. I didn’t go with weekly right away. We started with bi weekly and I will say it is my job. It’s been my job for years to help keep podcasters motivated, help them keep going when it feels like nothing is happening, experiencing it firsthand.

Was a totally different experience. You don’t see your results overnight. Like I talked about in the intro, this whole premise of pushing through when it feels like nothing’s happening. Yeah. You don’t see results overnight. You don’t even see them in a month. You don’t see them in six months. It’s a, it’s a slow build.

And consider all the things that go into this. Like if you’re doing guest appearances to promote yourself, for example, think about how long it takes to start getting some appearances booked and then actually record. And then there might be a months, delay before those episodes come out. And if you’re having backlinks in the show notes for those appearances, well, that takes time for Google to pick up on and give your website an SEO boost.

Like nothing happens that quickly. And I would apply this to Muay Thai in my own life as well. You know, I started Muay Thai, uh, probably in the last couple of years. And I did a stint of maybe six months. And even after that, I didn’t feel like. anything really happened. You know, I just felt, don’t think I’m any better than I was in the beginning, but if you actually were able to look, I would see that I was much improved.

And I’ve been doing it again recently and you do not become a world class fighter within a few months. Think about the people who have hit that level and look at the work that they’ve done. Jiu jitsu, for example, may be easier to visualize where they have the belt. You don’t get a black belt in six months.

It takes years and years to conquer. So everything takes time. And this is why that’s that stats. 7 percent of people stay with it long enough. It’s such a small number. It’s just because most people are not going to be that dedicated. They are going to fall off. They’re going to give up. They don’t see the results quickly enough, but they don’t have realistic expectations or whatever other reasons, you know, businesses shut down.

Fair enough. But we need to understand before we get into this stuff, it’s going to take time and commitment. So. I, we should never see anyone that starts podcasting and then realizes a month in, eh, this isn’t working. I’m, I quit. You should already know upfront before you get going, that this is going to require one, two, three plus years of dedication before you even see results.

So let’s go through the observations and lessons that I’ve had. I want to share these with you over the past year of having a podcast. First thing I want to touch on is the niche. We niche down even from when we started the podcast and we were still undergoing a bit of a rebrand at that point. And I was a little hesitant about going down the path of a niche into health and wellness where we eventually ended up.

We did start with at least a podcasting for entrepreneurs, but Given that we were going down the road of health and wellness, I should have just committed and made the decision then because I ended up starting the podcast in that more generic manner and then later having to rebrand and update things.

But that’s also just the part of entrepreneurship you have to Adjust as you go, you learn things, you change direction. So can’t entirely fault myself for that, but I should have just committed to that from the beginning.

I would say to consider that if you were podcasting, we’re starting a podcast, but again, you’re not going to have all the answers up front.

This is just how it goes. You may need to adjust. I’ve seen podcasters. I’ve seen them do that all the time where they say, Hey, I got to. Change my name, change my artwork. I know it’s unfortunate, but I realized that what I was doing is not the direction we need to be going. So don’t be afraid of it, but the more clarity you have upfront before you start, the better.

Schedule wise, as I mentioned, we started biweekly, eventually went up to weekly. We were ready for that. I felt pretty confident in the guest supply in the content. We had proof of concept was going to do two solo and two guests per month. So I felt like we could sustain that even in the worst of times, we should be able to get a couple of guests per month.

We also had optimized the workflow to make this more possible. So you start. getting momentum, right? You figure things out, you’re able to sustain to a month and during that time realize, well, this could be better. We could automate this and this wasn’t working too well. So you’re just refining and improving and then you’ve got all that perfected and you can easily then bump up to once a week.

and do so quite easily without biting off more than you could chew and getting stressed out and realizing it’s all hectic and chaotic and you don’t know what you’re doing. So I really like that idea of starting with bi weekly. I was also getting too far ahead on the recordings, I noticed. I was too ambitious because I, I, again, I was hesitant that we wouldn’t get enough guests to appear.

So we were doing a solo and a guest episode a month that was hardly any one guest a month. And then before I knew it, I had a big pile of guests just recorded waiting to release. And that was when I realized, okay, it could probably afford to do an extra guest per month and not run out of content.

Even weekly now, I’m pretty far ahead, two to three months. And I’m okay with that in our case, but once it starts dipping below a couple of months, I get nervous. But so far it has been okay. We’ve, we’ve been doing this for a year and haven’t run out or haven’t had to miss an episode cause we didn’t know what to put out with a guest or content.

I will say for us personally, and this depends on your podcasting goals, even doing the weekly episodes now. So two guests per month, it feels a little bit slow because one of the reasons I wanted to podcast was to connect with people, partly because Some of them may end up being clients or giving us referrals.

That’s of course one benefit of podcasting, but it’s not just that. I just want to make connections. I’ve met some great people so far that I’ve been able to help. I’ve done business with that’s helped my life. We’ve been able to have great conversations and refer people to each other. So there’s so much that comes from getting connections.

And it still kind of feels a little bit slow to me only doing two per month. It’s only 24 people a year and based on some of the results that I’ve got so far with the small number of guests we’ve had so far, I think we’ll imagine if we could multiply that by two, three or four.

Although I’m saying there’s all these benefits and I’ve got the workflow perfected. I don’t want to get to a point where I’m not enjoying it anymore or it’s too much. So if I was to try to do four guests a month or eight or whatever, eight episodes a month, maybe someday, but we can always increase it later.

We’re not beholden to keeping it where it’s at or putting it up or down. It can always be adjusted. I just. I want to make sure it’s sustainable for us. I also have concerns about the value of the content. Then I want to make sure that I’m able to put the proper effort into the preparation and securing. high quality guests and not just having to take people for the sake of it to fill up a slot. So that’s another thing that I would caution you about and to consider as you adjust or think about the schedule that you want to do for your podcast.

In terms of guests, let’s dive into guests a little more. Early on, when you’re first starting a podcast, get anyone that you can. Use connections, that’s what really helped us, because when you have a brand new podcast, especially these days, people are getting bombarded with pitches, not everyone’s going to be, Open to being on a show that’s brand new And nothing personal even a lot of times your pitches might just go in their trash or their spam So using connections early on to get anybody you can I was so grateful for that because we had a pile of clients here who were doing great things and I There were a perfect fit for the podcast and of course after working together for so many years.

They were totally happy To come on and be a guest on our podcast. So that was great to help us get started, get that momentum. And you definitely want to call upon your network. If you are starting a podcast and you need some help getting guests on, I see that all the time. This is not usually an issue.

People who are starting podcasts, they’ve got connections and their friend and work circles. So it’s never usually a problem to get those first ones going. It’s just, as you continue, a lot of times you’re trying to develop connections and meet new people. So even if you have a giant network, You don’t necessarily want to stay within that network forever.

Also, I talked about how we didn’t niche right away. And we had some guests on who weren’t in the health and wellness niche, but at that time we weren’t focusing on it. So that was okay. But as we did niche, then we got a clearer picture of who we should have on and became very, very clear that we need people in this niche.

And we had this idea too, of having experts on and behind the scenes, chatted about that and decided, you know what? We need to focus on real world people who are doing what our ideal clients and listeners want to be doing. So you must have a health and wellness business. You must have a podcast. And again, some of those expert episodes were great early on.

They taught me as well, but I’ve been having a great time learning. from people who are doing this stuff in the real world. So that is our focus. I think it’s very unique and insightful content too, that you can’t just get everywhere. And that’s a good benefit to have for a podcast that you’re doing. You don’t want to be posting content that can just be gotten anywhere else.

So if I’m going to have someone on to talk about copywriting, for example, well, there’s lots of resources out there. Discussed copywriting, but if I go to a health and wellness entrepreneur who has a podcast and a business similar to one that you are trying to run or you want to start and we hear about their journey and how they’ve addressed writing copy or hosting their podcast and using their podcast to monetize.

Now, that is not something that you’ll find everywhere. So I really see the importance of focusing in on the niche and what I’m getting at here is selecting the right guests. How can you best provide value through your podcast? So there are actually some episodes that we had recorded that I decided not to release.

And it’s going to be an evolution again. Like I said, if you’re starting out your first year, even beyond your first year, you’re always going to be making tweaks. There are things that you’re going to learn. This is one thing that I learned, although, okay, maybe not everything was a perfect fit, but we are constantly moving towards what is the right fit now because we understand better.

So, As I’ve touched on, part of our goal is to make new connections in our niche that could become great friends, great referral partners, perhaps a client here and there. So if that’s something that you are considering, be strategic about that as well. When you’re having people on, if you do want to connect with new people, then perhaps focusing solely on your existing network is not going to be the best strategy. As well with our guests. I have relied quite heavily on pod match.

I’m really, really grateful for pod match podcast. Guest. com has been okay as well. And there’s a Facebook group or several Facebook groups for guests. Thanks. That’s been good. I find that the highest echelon of guests,

they’re not on these things looking for guest appearances. Now using these groups, of course, we’ll get you some great connections, some great people. That’s how I’ve done it so far and I’ve, I’ve had some excellent conversations and made some great new friends and connections, but you’re just going to be limited.

There’s going to be a certain type of people who are on there and a certain type you’re not going to have access to, and that’s going to require a different strategy. So as you grow, you will need to reassess, perhaps, depending on how you’ve been finding your guests and see what methods there are to connect with the people that you want to connect with as you grow.

But especially starting out, those types of websites and directories were great. I just think, too, I’m probably gonna burn through everyone on there at some point. I don’t know the growth rate, for example, on pod match of health and wellness podcasters who are then interested in talking to me. So there may come a point where there’s just none left and then we’re going to need to find something, some other source.

So keep that in mind. I spoke with my friend Bev recently. She was on an episode with us a while back and she told me, Her best secret is to just make connections, get introduced. Cause I’ve taught, I tried a little bit of this Instagram cold outreach for guests and it’s difficult, you know, on Instagram, you’re getting thrown in that other message box, whatever it is.

So not everyone’s seeing it. If they have any sort of following their DMS are quite crowded. So they’re just not even going to see it in a lot of cases. And then if they do, they might just disregard it as spam. If you’re just inviting them on inviting them on your show. So that’s why Bev’s advice was just literal.

solid relationships and connections. There’s no way around it. There’s no way to cheat. There’s no AI method. You just have to start developing connections with people, getting to know them and eventually through them directly or through getting introduced through someone else, you’ll be able to connect.

And it’s, it sounds quite easy once you’ve done that hard part or that, that part that requires the effort. It’s not difficult. It just requires work to be in touch with these people and making new connections and then. By the time you go and ask for an introduction, you’ve done so many favors and helped other people.

They’re more than happy to introduce you. And that’s perhaps going to be a way that you do things. You can meet people in real life at events. There’s all sorts of ways, but the guest directory type things like pod match, I think is only going to get you so far.

as well with today’s influx of AI and automated software, and even just outsourcing things, whether it’s overseas or to someone local, it seems to be more and more difficult to reach the type of people that you’re trying because they have Instagram.

You can start trying to foster a relationship by adding valuable comments to their posts and liking and things like that, but they might not even see it. They might respond and it might be their assistant, which could still help, but you might not even be making an impact on them, that you may be posting for weeks and months thinking you’re becoming their friend and they literally have no idea who you are.

Because an AI was. Responding to your comments. So that’s another unique challenge that we’ll have to see how to address moving forward when it comes to guest connection and outreach and building your network, particularly, particularly in terms of podcasting here and how it can help

it’s interesting to some of the even medium size, not necessarily huge podcasts I’ve seen. They’re saying no guest pitches and we don’t want any more guest pitches. We have enough. We have all of our guests lined up. Uh, every now and then I encounter one that is very far booked ahead. Like I’ve been accepted or approached in either either case to record on some podcasts as a guest.

And when I go into their calendar, it’s like six months out before I can even schedule. And I think, I don’t know if I’m going to be, I don’t know where I’m going to be at that point. that day, six months from now, I don’t know if I’m going to be alive. Uh, so that, and then by the time you record, there’s a big delay after.

So some podcasts are just saturated with guests. And it’s very interesting to see that because if you’re newer at this and you’ve, you’ve probably had to hustle quite a bit to get the guests on that you’ve had. So the idea that there’s people out there who are literally turning away guests and refusing any more pitches.

That’s pretty cool. And as you get built up more and more, you will get pitched more and the whole guest finding process will become easier and easier. So that’s neat. I’ve received some pitches in my email for this show. A lot of them were just kind of AI, not relevant, not someone I would have on. , it’s just a factor of your email being out there in the podcasting space.

But it will come for sure. I know as we move into year two and three, there’ll be more and more people coming to pitch us. On connections specifically to delve a little more into that as one of the big benefits and things I’ve learned from doing podcasting here for the first year. I have made some great connections already. I think that’s very plausible that as a new podcaster, you would definitely start making some great connections very early on.

If you were having guests on your show, I’ve been able to introduce some people to each other. I’ve actually started doing business with multiple guests, not in a, not where they’re paying me. But I started paying them. Uh, but that’s great. That’s value exchange. They obviously remember more and more who you are.

If you’re actually working with them, that’s how it’s done. And this is significantly benefited my business because I connected with people I could trust or I didn’t necessarily even know that I wanted to hire a person for a certain thing, but I connected with them on the podcast. I learned, Hey, this person really knows what they’re doing.

I trust them. I want to work with them and they’re in my network now because if I would even just have a question about marketing, for example, I think, who do I know? Because I’ve had a face to face conversation with someone on my show, I can go out, talk to them. And then before you know it, we’re doing business together.

Then someday they send me a referral. So really, really great. I’m loving that connection aspect of podcasting. Thinking back to a year ago, before we had this, All the people that I didn’t know then who I now know is really big. I’ve learned some great things. It’s just, it’s so good to feel that you have those connections in your network that you just wouldn’t get by say, connecting on LinkedIn and never having a call or never actually discussing or doing some research to have them on as a guest.

So find this to be a huge advantage of podcasting. It’s been great watching my LinkedIn grow and just knowing the people whose posts pop up. Bye. The fact that we had that conversation together. So things are moving. Things are in motion there when it comes to connections. I really, really like that. And it hasn’t only been guests on our show, but I’ve done some guest appearances on other podcasts as well.

I mentioned briefly. Just goes hand in hand. If you’re a podcaster, it helps you grow your show. It’s just, uh, it’s a different style since the spotlight is on you. And if you are set up for podcasting anyway, you’re used to it. I think it’s really beneficial to go out and be a guest at least one or two times a month could be more, but that’s helped me increase the number of connections I’ve made even more.

And. As we talked about the limitations of producing your own episodes and you do guest appearances, it’s really just sitting there for 30 or 60 minutes cause you already know what you’re going to be talking about. You’re the expert, so it requires much less preparation, but you’re still getting your name out there.

So highly recommend doing that method as well to increase the number of connections that you will make and facilitate by being a podcaster.

Next thing to touch on is monetization. This big element of leads and sales that we talk about here on the podcast all the time. Well, with a bigger audience and a longer time horizon will come more solid sales with your podcast. We are building this marketing tool here. When you have a podcast, you’re building this machine.

So here at East Coast Studio, we started the podcast. We had other things to get in order as well, like our lead magnet. We We need to get that set up and optimized the freebie that we’re giving away. Right? So that’s been a work in progress at the same time. So the podcast hasn’t been, well, the podcast didn’t have an audience when it started.

It does now, but still during that time when there wasn’t much of an audience, we were building the lead magnets. We’re just kind of waking up here and getting things going. Your audience growth is going to start slow. In most cases, it’s going to vary depending on your social media following or your mailing list, whatever you have.

When you start a podcast, but, uh, to even have anyone who would potentially come by anything through your podcast, that takes time. It’s very rare. You’re just going to launch a podcast. The next day you’ve got a client through it. Right. But we’re getting more and more people saying things like I saw on your Instagram, which is repurposed podcast content.

So I don’t have to put any extra effort into that, but clips from the podcast go up on Instagram. People see it. So people who have actually ended up booking calls with us, they’ve been on calls with us, they’ve referenced content on Instagram.

They’ve referenced the podcast. So it’s definitely playing a role. Even if people are not listening every week and coming to buy from you right away, it plays a role. And as the audience numbers come up, it’s just all coming together. And it will become a more solid sales funnel over time. And the reason why we’re talking about this today is to talk about expectations and what could you expect after a year of podcasting.

And if you’ve done it for six months or a year and you haven’t been getting a bunch of sales from it, Is that normal? I think yes, it is quite normal. Now we still want to be looking and optimizing and assessing to see what we can improve and fix and your call to actions. There’s a whole bunch of things we want to make sure you’re doing correctly, but don’t expect even after a year that you’re getting a ton of business from it as we, the theme is here.

It just takes time. And I think after, after a year, you’re one, you’re just kind of getting going. You’ve perfected a lot of things. Now it’s time to unleash and really start getting results from the podcast. That’s where I feel like we are right now.

Some other improvements and things to comment on from this year. First of all, it was a great opportunity to optimize and solidify workflows and documentations, not just for the podcast specifically, but those guests interviews.

I mentioned where I go out and appear on other podcasts. I put some cool systems in place for that to track those when they’re going to be published, who it’s with so I can keep it organized and for our own guest interviews. So. Having a nice form set up for them to book. When they do that, it comes into an air table sheet and things are all tracked nicely.

So just little things where you don’t really realize until you are doing it over and over. You’re recording episodes over and over or booking people over and over and you start to realize, I am doing this same action repeatedly. Is there a way to automate that? Or this is kind of annoying. Oh yeah, I could do this in Zapier instead of manually doing this, we could have it automated.

So that’s just something that you learn over time as you get familiar with your processes. So that’s been really, really great. , the place where we’re at now with all that stuff versus a year ago when just starting out is so much better, so much time gets saved. And I’m really impressed. With having that all set up.

We also added some better things kind of in the same vein here. Some things like follow up emails. Which promoted our business. So every guest that comes on now, we notify them that their episode is live and I’ll have a little thing in there. Could you please leave us a review? By the way, this is what our company does.

Same opposite for if I appear on other podcasts, I email them right away. This is an idea I got from someone, something someone else did where once I’m done the appearance, I email them. Here’s my photo and my bio and a couple of things. And please let me know when the episode is live.

So really love that idea too. And it’s just these types of things that we’ve been adding and adding over the past year. And you’re just, you’re always going to be doing this. I think learning and implementing over time, there’s going to be new ideas. You see in other places you want to put into play, something’s going to not work right, or you’ll see an opportunity.

Always be open to that and willing to grow. As you do your podcast over the first year and beyond. to conclude year one, yeah, I feel like it’s just us getting started. . It sounds like a long time, but being a year in now, it’s really not that long.

It feels like just yesterday I started the show. When you look at the episode list, I mean, it’s big, but it’s small at the same time, relatively. So when you are either starting out, Or if you’re in your first year right now, just drop any expectation that by the end of year one, you should be seeing big results.

This is why I’m saying it’s so absurd for people to quit after a few months. There’s no possible way you can make the decision in that time that it’s not going to work. Maybe you discover podcasting is just not for you and fair enough, but you’ve got to give it a minimum of a year. I used to say minimum of a year.

I’m saying more like minimum two years now, you just invested all of that time and energy into getting it going. To stop after a year, just wouldn’t make any sense. As entrepreneurs, we are of course, balancing our resources.

There are limits to what we can do, but I know with us, we were just very consistent. We made lots of improvements as I’ve told you about, ,

also during this time, we’ve built credibility. We started getting some reviews, some social proof. So the bigger names start taking you seriously. You’re not just a podcast with zero reviews and two episodes on your website, right? It just takes time. And that’s going to factor in as you move forward as well.

When you start pitching people, they’ll see, instead of a person with no episodes or a handful of episodes, Oh, this person actually has a back catalog of 20, 30, 40, 50 episodes. While they had a big, some big names on there. You can’t do that overnight.

 So I wish I started sooner, but this is funny because a year ago, right when we were starting, I thought, why didn’t we start sooner? I could have been one or two years in already and already be reaping the benefits and I looked at other people who had started and thought, yeah, I wish I just had begun sooner, but now here I am a year in and I’m that guy.

Other people could look at our podcast and say, oh, why didn’t, why didn’t I start or. I should start. And then they’re going to be a year behind where I am right now. And not that it’s a competition, but it’s just that, that way of thinking. You just got to start. So yes, I wish we started sooner, but at the same time we did start a year ago and now we’re a year in and I’m going to keep going.

No plans to stop. And your early content is, it’s going to get better later. Look at any creator online. They were never as good out of the gate as they were one year later, two years, three years, we all get better. So don’t worry about having too big of an audience up front. You probably don’t want people to see all of that.

It’s great practice. I even noticed with us, like my content now looks so much better than it did back then. It’s just the nature of it. So very grateful to be that far in. And that’s yet another thing that will add on to your momentum is people. Maybe it would have seen you a year ago and maybe you looked a bit amateur.

Maybe you weren’t comfortable on camera. Maybe you weren’t speaking clearly. And they just didn’t take you as seriously as. Being a year in, you’re a totally different person on camera. The content is a lot more polished. I would hope if you’re constantly refining and learning. So all these things add up to make you more of a force with your podcast moving forward.

If you’ve been podcasting for any length of time in the health and wellness space, big congrats, as I’ve outlined here, it’s a hustle.

I hope you continue listening to our show because I’m trying to help you build your podcast and business into everything that it could be.

So thank you and we’ll talk to you again soon.