A Charlotte, North Carolina podcast production company has some thoughts on podcast strategy.
So you are thinking you maybe, kind of, sort of, want to start a podcast. Seems like everybody’s saying you should—you’ve read blogs about the importance of podcasting (like this one), you’ve heard podcasts about it, you’ve even had other professionals come up and tell you “hey, you should have a podcast.” You’re starting to think maybe you should give it a shot.
Great!
You’re probably thinking about everything starting a podcast would entail. You might be considering names, formats, even equipment purchases (though a good podcast doesn’t actually need a lot of fancy audio equipment to get started). But have you thought about a strategy? Lots of people don’t, even though a strategy is the one thing you definitely need to achieve your goals.
What are your goals? Do you want the podcast to be an income stream? Do you want to use this podcast for internal training, or maybe as a way to help you secure a speaking gig? Are you planning to be the next Joe Rogan? Do you want 1,000 unique listeners by the end of month one? While those two are lofty goals, I’m not here to say you can’t do it—what’s your strategy for getting there?
Some of my goals with podcasting are to get my ideas out there, to meet interesting people and to learn a lot, and to think through things that intrigue me–all so I can grow myself and my business. And because, in my opinion, all these things are good to do anyway.
So the strategy I use for our podcast is to share my thoughts and also to invite on guests I can learn from. This way I can promote my guests, by introducing them to the people who follow my work—but it’s also a way I can introduce my work to the people who follow my guests. There’s leverage in that. Leverage in chatting with people I otherwise would not be able to chat with and leverage in connecting with new people. It’s media leverage and done authentically, it works (there are more details to it, but that’s the basic version). You can do something similar, with your own spin on it, or you could do something else. It’s totally up to you.
You can think up any strategy you want, but you don’t have to do your thinking alone. You don’t have to do any of this alone. Let’s be honest, it takes a lot of time. You can hire people to help you strategize, and you can also hire people to help you with other aspects of creating your podcast. The right team can take the guesswork and hassle out of the project so you can make your vision really come alive.
I know a number of podcast production companies. I also know a number of strategy companies. But a big reason why I am excited about our is work is we are the group that is both a strategy and a podcast production company. In fact, we have someone on our team known as “The Strategy Addict”!
We would be excited to help you. But this isn’t about us. It’s about you. And the decision to take the next step with a podcast is up to you. I don’t like to give advice unasked-for, and I’m not into telling people what to do. It’s just not my thing.
Except you totally should do a podcast.
(just make sure you have a podcast strategy)
We talk a lot about podcasting on our podcasts. Here’s a clip from our SportsEpreneur podcast talking about connecting with someone who also has a podcast and:
- why podcasts are valuable
- podcast strategy
- the amazing resource that is podcasting
Below is the text from this clip, edited for your reading pleasure:
You come out with a podcast that you’ve been doing a lot of.
And your podcast continues to evolve and you continue to evolve, self-betterment, communication. Just you and I having a conversation. This is communication. This is at the heart of it.
I think someone could have a podcast for the simple fact or the simple going down this journey of being a better communicator.
If you hear yourself talking, if you have conversations with people, you’re going to put yourself under pressure, you’re going to put yourself in this situation.
It’s interesting because I came to learn about you. We were sitting down in our conference room and I got introduced to one of the leaders at Kids in Seats, Ann Lademann and for whatever reason, she just dropped your name she says, I think the founder of our company is going to be on Rob Cressy’s podcast and he’s here and that was it.
So I had to go out to lunch that day because I had to take a break because I was in back to back meetings. I go to lunch at this Vietnamese restaurant down the street. It’s pretty awesome. It was really quiet because it was late in the day. And I just pull up your podcast and I listened to it and I listened to it and I listened to it.
Bill Rasmussen ESPN founder, Arica Kress from the Columbus Crew, Adam White from Front Office Sports and the list goes on and on and on.
Rob, When I tell you that I took in and consumed your content on your podcast? I really did. It wasn’t a joke.
It was real, it was genuine.
And that’s when I reached out to you and said man, This is really awesome.
We put a blog post out there talking about your podcast because it was like, man here is someone putting out good vibes.
So when I go back and I think about when I started listening to podcasts, It’s when I started thinking about starting my own business and this is about seven years ago.
It’s when I realized that if I was having negative thoughts I needed to put positive thoughts in my head.
I double down on reading, I double down on listening to books, I started going to the podcast world and continued to evolve to the point where we created our own podcast because I wanted to talk to people like you.
So there’s a lot of things-
there’s leverage there because I can say, “Hey Rob” I can chat with you because we both have a podcast.
The point is podcasting is an incredible resource and there are so many different reasons as to why you should even have a podcast that we haven’t even touched on here
but I came across and then what I got to know you before I ever talked to you, I knew your voice, I knew what you believed in, I knew your thoughts, your positive vibes, so when I got on the phone with you it kind of goes back to the thing that we talked about in the beginning is that we’re already passed like all this other stuff. We can just jump right into all these different conversations.
There is nothing like it right now and I truly mean that because I’ve lived it and we’ve helped other people with podcasting. I know you have as well. I’ve watched other people live it and it’s an amazing experience but I just have to say that being able to consume this content and hear some of the thoughts that I just talked about on the different episodes that you’ve had has helped me out. And I know it’s helped other people out and that’s why we’re talking today because this is real man. This is what it’s all about and it’s the beginning of the journey of having a relationship and you don’t even have to say well “What does that even mean? What does that relationship mean?” It doesn’t have to mean anything. It could just mean you and I have this conversation and that could be the end of it and that’s cool because I could learn a lot from you.
…and there’s so much more to podcast strategy and podcasts in general. The podcast conversation is always just getting started.
Want to get started? Let’s chat.